Dive to the Heart
Hope was a fourteen year old girl with short brown hair with bangs parting to the opposite side and violet-blue eyes. She had a tan skin colour and wore wearing a black t-shirt, a red hoodie, black pants, a pair of gloves that were coloured black on the outside and white on the inside with a yellow line running around them and a pair of leather combat boots. Then only bit of jewel she wore was a crown pendent around her neck.
She was falling through water, but she remembered falling into the water. In fact the only thing she was thinking about was why she was here at all? Is there any reason why she excited? And if there was what was it?
Then she saw something in the distance and saw the ground, she then began to descend slowing. A second later she touched the ground and at once the darkness below her feet starts to transform into birds and fly away, showing a radiant light that slowly forms into a circle.
The circle was shaded green, depicting Snow White, the Seven Dwarfs, the forest animals, and The Queen in her hag form. Snow White was asleep, while the other characters were depicted as awake. It was then she realised that the circle was in fact a tall pillar.
She then heard a mysterious voice all around her. It sounded as though the wind was carrying it making it hard to make out.
Darkness has returned… and we need a new warrior to combat it. You need to take your first step… but beware, because you might trip and fall.
Suddenly three podiums shoot out from the pillar. Then three weapons appeared out of nowhere on top of the podiums, a sword, a shield and a staff, and each one of them had King Mickey's seal embedded into them.
There is a great power that sleeps in you. And know we most awaken it. Find the tool that suits you and being your journey.
Hope wasn't sure what this was all about, but she didn't have much choice in the matter. She looked at each of the weapons and found the sword suited her. She jumped onto the podium and took the sword then the mysterious voice spoke again.
The power of the warrior. Invincible courage. A sword of terrible destruction. Is this power you want?
Terrible destruction didn't sound good, but in the right hands a sword can help many people. She wouldn't give it up.
Then the sword vanished and the voice spoke again.
When someone takes power they must give up another in exchange in order to stay in balance or else be destroyed.
Hope looked at the shield and staff and knew at once which she should give up. She approached the podium with the staff on it and grabbed it and once again heard the mysterious voice once again.
The power of the mystic. Inner strength. A staff of wonder and ruin. Is this the power you wish to give up?
Magic can do some good, but ever often it was used to destroy and this wasn't the power she wished to have. Then the staff vanished into fin air again.
Next second, the podiums sunk into the pillar and then it shattered. Hope found herself falling once again and then in the distance she saw another pillar which was shaded violet and depicting a sleeping Cinderella.
And then she found herself falling gently and landed on the pillar completely unharmed. She then summoned the Dream Sword into a hand and examined it.
Then suddenly creatures began appearing out of the pillar, she recognised them as Shadows type of Pure-blood Heartless. Without a second thought she spun around and sliced through one of them with her sword.
Another Shadow sank into the ground and try to tackle from behind, but she performed a backflip and stabbed it in the back. A Shadow tried to tackle her and she simply sidestepped before slashing it with her sword.
The last remaining Shadows sank into the ground and the entire pillar was covered in darkness. Hope tried to escape, but she found herself sinking deeper into the darkness until it covered her completely.
She kept on struggling, but the dung is faded away and she found herself on another pillar. This one depicting Queen Kairi of Radiant Garden and by her side was her husband Sora. She also saw Sir Riku, their best friend and along with other friends including, Donald, Goofy and many others.
She then saw a beam of light in the centre of the circle and approached it and then she heard the mysterious voice once again.
The closer you are to the light, the greater your shadow becomes.
Hope turned and saw that her shadow was indeed large, larger than herself. Then what came next made her gasp in horror. The shadow was pulling itself out of the ground, and it began to grow and grow until it became another Heartless, a Darkside.
Hope tried to run, but she remembered that she was on a pillar with no means of escape. The Darkside look down on her and she knew if she wanted to escape she would have to fight.
The Darkside then swung a punch straight at her and she was able to dodge it easily. Then darkness leak out of the hand creating some kind of pool and Shadows began to emerge. However, this also left the Darkside open.
She jumped onto it arm and made her way towards its head and began striking it with her sword. The Darkside pulled back its arm, and the result caused Hope to fall the ground and the Shadows began to charge at her.
She quickly jumped onto a feet and with one mighty slash she was able to take out three of them. While she was busy with the Shadows the Darkside creating a force in the heart-shaped hole in its body and began firing dark homing missiles.
Hope swung the sword at just the right moment and deflected several of the dark homing missile straight at it. After recovered from the attack its wrong its fist once again and Hope jumped onto it she then started in the head with her sword.
When she pulled back and landed on the circle she knew she had defeated the Darkside, because it began to fall and then she heard the mysterious voice once more.
You must follow your father's footsteps and save the world from the upcoming darkness…
She then saw the Darkside falling towards her.
For if you don't everything you love and treasures will be lost.
Then the Darkside collapsed on top of her.
Radiant Garden: Rose Garden
Hope awoke with a start, she looked around and found herself in the rose gardens. She remembered now she had taken a nap inside the rose gardens, she then leaned back and then saw someone staring down at her making her jump.
It was a pale-skinned boy with long raven-black hair that reached his back and blue-green eyes. He was wearing a white shirt with a black cross in front of it and wore yellow jacket over that. He had a pair of blue jeans and wore a pair of trainers on his feet. His face was kind and gentle and at the moment was laughing at her.
"Shade, what did you do that for?" Hope complained as she got a feet.
"I was trying to inform you that your father wanted to see you," said Shade. "Also I wanted to see the look on your face."
"I was just resting my eyes," Hope blushed.
"Uh-huh," said Shade not looking convinced. "Admitted you were just lazing around."
"I have every right to sleep when I want," said Hope crossing her arms.
"So that bandits could kidnap the Princess of this world," said Shade raising an eyebrow.
Yes, she was a princess, though she did look or act like one. She wasn't the typical princess that had a dress for every day of the week and she would rather sneak off than do her lessons.
Her parents were King Sora and Queen Kairi of Radiant Garden, and were adored by all. And if that wasn't enough they will also Guardians of Light e.g. members of the Keyblade Order High Council. They had saved the world from Xehanort the Betrayer, who wished darkness to cover the Realm of Light.
Course this meant that Hope had a lot to live up to, she had went to a parent to many worlds like the Destiny Islands and people expected her to achieve just as much as the parents. Sometime she wished that she was just a normal girl with a normal family.
"How can the be bandits in the City of Light," said Hope indignantly as they made their way towards the gate.
"What's the first thing your mother taught you, there's always darkness even inside the brightest light," said Shade. "The same goes for any city, there are always people who wish to improve themselves by any means, even by kidnapping the Princess."
"But mum doesn't have any darkness," Hope pointed out.
"That's different, you know very well your mother is a Princess of Heart," Shade reminded. Then he saw Hope beginning to open her mouth and added, "And both your father and Master Ventus had their darkness removed forcefully and that created embodiments of living darkness of themselves."
Hope closed her mouth instead focused on her dream. It had felt so real and yet so familiar as if she had experienced it once before. What could it mean?
Radiant Garden: Castle Courtyard
Soon they entered in the courtyard of the castle, the castle itself was huge and could be seen from miles. Her great uncle Ansem, the previous ruler of Radiant Garden, before his apprentices uprising, had designed it and she was never quite sure what it was meant to look like.
She then saw her mother talking with Merlin, her tutor.
Her mother was in her thirties and wearing a beautiful pink dress with a golden crown on top of long dark-red hair. People always commented that she looked a lot like a mother when she was her age.
Merlin was a powerful wizard and wore a long blue robes that reached to his knees in a long pointed blue hat. He had a long white beard that he sometimes tripped over when every walked and in his hand he had a long magic wand.
Then her mother turned and saw heaven smiled. "Hope, there you are," she said and walked over to them. She then looked at Shade. "Where did you find her?"
"In the rose garden, sleeping," said Shade.
Hope turned and glared at him, but her mother just laughed and shook her head.
"You're just like your father," she said.
"The apple doesn't seem to fall far from the tree," said Merlin, who chuckled.
"Shade said you wanted to see me," said Hope rolling her eyes.
"Yes, your father wanted to begin practising and had asked me in Merlin to supervise," said her mother.
"Why can't he do it?" Kairi complained.
"Hope, you know very well that he's busy with a High Council, there has been an increase in Heartless lately."
"She's right, my dad's been busy as well," said Shade.
Shade's father happened to be her uncle Riku. Riku wasn't really her uncle, but that's what she liked calling him ever since she was a little girl. Riku spent most of his time watching the Lanes Between, in order to keep an eye on dark forces that wish to invade other worlds.
Ever since Kingdom Hearts had been opened, more people slowly began to realise that there were other worlds and wants to visit them. Unfortunately, not all of them wanted to go for holiday some of them tried to conquer them.
One of the Keyblade Order duties was to stop these villains succeeding. They were also in charge of keeping balance between light and darkness and only intervene when the scale began to tip.
Recently, however, the Heartless, which were people who fell prey to the darkness inside their hearts, have become more active. The Emblem Heartless, which were the Heartless that were people whose hearts that had been taken from other Heartless, were slowly reappearing and there are a lot more Pure-blood Heartless, which were Heartless that were naturally born people who accepted the darkness in their hearts and transformed.
"What do I do," Hope sighed.
"First take out these targets," said her mother. She then raised a hand in orbs of light appeared.
Hope raised a hand and summoned her Keyblade. Her Keyblade was the Kingdom Key, the Keyblade that her father used to wield. It was looked like a classic skeleton key with a long silver keychain extending from the hilt, and had King Mickey's crest is a Keychain. Its blade and teeth were silver, the rain guard was blue and the guard is bright gold. Its teeth form the outline of a crown which matches her pendant.
She then began swing her Keyblade at the orbs; it really wasn't much of a challenge. Every now and then the orbs would shot out beams of light, but it wasn't really much of a problem.
When she destroyed the last of the orbs, she turned and looked at her mother and Merlin.
"Every good Hope," said her mother.
"Now let's practise your magic," said Merlin.
He waved his wand and a table and chairs appeared. They then began flying around over her and she turned and looked at Merlin.
"I want you to use your magic against them, like this," he said. He aimed his wand at one of the chairs. "Fire!"
A fireball exited his wand and blasted the chair into smithereens.
Hope then approached the chairs and tables. "Fire!" she yelled.
She shoot a fireball at a chair and blew it to bits. She kept on doing it the chairs and the table again and again, but every time she felt herself getting weaker.
"The more magic you perform the more mana you lose," said Merlin after all the chairs and the table were destroyed. "It's important not to ally on magic all the time. If you run out of mana use an Ether to replenish yourself."
Merlin then handed her three Ethers and she placed it in her back pack.
"I think that well do for today, Merlin," said her mother.
Merlin nodded and left the courtyard with Shade close behind.
Her mother then looked at her. "Come your father should have returned by now."
Hope nodded and they walked up to the castle.
Radiant Garden: Castle Throne Room
The throne room was large and full of chairs for people to sit on, at the very back sat three thrones. Two of them were large, they belong to her parents and the third was the smallest sat next to her mother's throne, which was hers.
She never liked sitting on it, because partly it was uncomfortable, but meanly because she didn't like lording over people. It was extremely hard for her to make friends, because she was a princess she only considered Shade a friend, because he didn't treat her like one.
Then she saw her father ahead of them. He was tall with bright-blue eyes brown spiky hair and a beard. He was wearing a formal red and black uniform and had a crown on top of his head.
He was talking to someone in a black cloak; she couldn't make out his face, because he had a hood over his head. Whatever they were talking seemed to make her father worried, which was very rare.
"This is serious," her father said. "Are you sure of this."
"Positive," said the cloaked man. "The Heartless are well organised which indicates someone is controlling them."
"It can't be Maleficent this time," her father said. "Though she does have a habit of coming back from the dead." He then saw his wife and daughter approaching towards them. "If you excuse me."
He approached his wife and gave her a big hug in her on the cheek. He then did the same to Hope, who was still wondering what was going on.
"Is there a problem, dear?" her mother asked.
"The Heartless are becoming more organised and we fear that someone is controlling them, at least according to Ven" said her father.
So it was Master Ventus that explained the cloak. Master Ventus spent most of his time traveling from world to world and always wore a cloak so not to gather too much attention. Though Hope wasn't sure someone walking around in cloak with a hood over their face would have the opposite effect.
"Does Riku know who it is?" her mother asked.
"No, which is indeed troubling. We haven't seen Heartless move like this since the Keyblade War."
"Could it be another Keyblade wielder?" Hope asked.
Her father then looked down at her and smiled. "Doubtful, there not that many Keyblade wielders thanks to Xehanort betrayal and those who remained have joined the Order," he said reassuringly.
"I have indeed sense darkness drawing closer," said her mother.
Then, for some reason, Hope felt the urge to tell her parents about her dream. "Mum, Dad, I've been meaning to tell you about this dream I had this morning," she said.
She then slowly began to explain everything from the mysterious voice, to the Heartless and the podiums. She all through it was just a dream, but the look on her parents faces proved otherwise.
"Is something wrong?" she said.
"No," said her father, though she could tell he was lying.
"Sora, you need to tell her," said her mother.
Her father sighed. "Very well," he said and bent down to look at her in the eyes. "Hope, whenever Keyblade wielder has had that dream means the Realm of Light is threatened. It also means that you will be starting your Quest earlier than expected."
Hope stared at him, a Quest was something that a Keyblade wielder goes on when they prove their worth. It meant that she and two others would go from world to world doing some sort of task.
"I'm ready for Quest?" Hope asked.
"It is not for me to say," her father said. "But we must head to the Temple to inform the others."
Hope didn't really knew what was going on, nor did she like it, but it seemed she had so little choice. It would seem her own adventure was about to begin.