Introductory A/N: This story is largely inspired by the video game, Kingdom Hearts (in which Brittany Snow actually voiced a character named Naminé in one installment of the game) and the X-Men franchise. It plays around the concepts of light and dark, as well as sociopolitical issues faced by minority groups, with the Pitch Perfect characters we all adore.

While you don't have to have played KH to understand this story, the depth and grittiness of the theme might require some more thought than your average fan fiction. I wrote the story under the assumption that the readers aren't KH fans, but because of the popularity of the X-Men, I don't doubt that most will have no trouble understanding the plot later on when it gets there.

Chapter One: What They Found at the Old Abandoned Mansion

"Are you sure about this?" whispered a boy with dark brown hair nervously as he laid his bike on the ground gently.

It was a warm summer evening, barely half past midnight, and two teenagers were crouched behind a large bush outside the gates of an old mansion. The compound was known by most of the locals to have been abandoned for over a decade, and everyone had a least one second-hand story of strange things happening to adventurous (or drunk) teenagers wandering into the lot in the middle of the night.

"It's too late to go back now," whispered the boy's companion, a small and pale girl with hair a slightly lighter shade of brown than his. "Besides, even if it isn't money or drugs in there, I'm positive it's something someone doesn't want anyone to find out about."

"Then maybe we shouldn't be snooping around!" warned the boy, grabbing her arm before she could leave the cover and safety of their current position. She, however, merely rolled her eyes at him and jerked her arm away.

"Where's the fun in that? It's our last summer before graduation. We should end it with a bang." As she said so, the braver of the two stepped carefully around the bush under which they hid their bikes. The light of the full moon made up for the absence of lamps on the dark and secluded street and aided her as she approached the walls of the mansion. She motioned to the boy to follow her quickly.

"Should we really be passing through the front gate?" he hissed, looking around wildly for security cameras.

"It's the only gate. And don't worry about cameras; there aren't any."

"Maybe not ones we can see—"

"Would you quit being a baby?" she snapped. "Look, the perps don't need security cameras 'cause everyone else thinks this place is haunted. Whoever drummed up those stories about people losing consciousness were probably in on it, too." She finally paused at the end of the stone wall where it connected to the gates and turned to him with a scowl on her face. "Besides, wasn't this your idea?"

"Yeah, but now that we're here…" But before the boy could completely express his hesitation, his friend was already swiftly and effortlessly climbing over the narrow metal gate. He let out a dramatic sigh before following, though his attempt was a lot less graceful than hers. Eventually, they both managed to get into the property without a hitch. They crossed the large unkempt yard without trouble and arrived at the mansion's raised stone patio.

The girl looked up at the large wooden double-doors and eyed its hinges, noting how dusty they were. "This door hasn't been used in a long time," she observed. "Whoever's hiding something in there must be using another entrance."

"Where do you think it is?" the boy asked.

"Doesn't matter," she replied with a smirk. "We're making our own entrance."

She stepped off the patio and, with greater agility than an Olympic gymnast would dream to possess, took a running leap straight toward the mansion's wall. She boosted herself off a ground-floor windowsill, latched on to a second-floor one, and pulled herself up before side jumping onto the wide roof of the patio.

The boy snorted up at her. "Show off. I could have easily given us a lift, you know."

"No, Jesse, wait—!"

But she was too late. Eager to show off his own abilities, the boy named Jesse stepped off the patio, onto the hard ground, and thrust his hands in front of him palms-down.

The ground split and cracked loudly, forming a rough circle around his feet. Then, with a loud lurch the earth beneath Jesse rose to a ten-foot column, allowing him to easily step onto the roof where his friend was still crouched low. His proud smirk slid off his face when he saw the angry look on hers.

"Okay, genius, now put the ground back exactly how you left it," she scolded. "So much for not leaving a trace!"

"Oops. Sorry, Beca!" Jesse quickly tried to mend his mistake by pushing the risen earth back to its original position, but someone had already heard and felt the ground's displacement.

"What was that?"

A tall and poised blonde raised her fist, signaling her own companion to freeze. The figure behind her stopped advancing and shrugged.

"I didn't hear anything," said a male and distinctly British voice. He took a single step forward, into the moonlight, which revealed his tall stature, chiseled jawline, and short, wavy blond hair.

"Did you at least feel that?" the girl beside him asked irritably, referring to the soft tremble beneath their feet that happened a second later.

The Briton frowned. "Okay, that I felt."

The two were just about to enter the abandoned lot through its gates when they felt the tremor. The young man pointed to his partner and used a variety of hand signals commanding her to stay where she was while he investigated, to which she responded by rolling her eyes and marching on stubbornly. Her companion shook his head in exasperation before following.

After cautiously crossing the overgrown yard, they arrived at the front doors. The Brit made the same observations Beca had about its hinges, while his female partner noted the disturbance in the ground near the window adjacent to the patio.

"It looks like someone dug up the earth and put it back," she observed. "And very sloppily, I might add."

The Brit relaxed his stance. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" he commented with a light smirk; his partner only huffed in reply. "All right, Swanson, we know you're there," he called out, looking around the vicinity for signs of other intruders.

"I bet Mitchell is with him, too," the girl muttered to herself.

"Come down from the roof now and we don't tell your parents, yeah?" The Brit took a couple of steps back to get a better view of the roof above them. "I can see your sneakers, Swanson, come on."

Jesse Swanson defeatedly crawled over to the edge of the roof where he had been lying flat on his stomach trying to stay out of sight of the two blondes. "Dammit, how did you know?" he muttered half-heartedly. He knew, of course, that it was his fault. He nudged a fuming Beca beside him with his elbow, offering her to go down first.

A muscle in Beca's jaw clenched. She grabbed Jesse by the back of his shirt and pushed him off the roof before leaping down gracefully herself.

"Ow!"

"What are you two doing here?" Beca asked at once, frowning up at the towering blondes, before they could ask her the same.

"She means 'Hello, Aubrey, Luke. Nice to see you,'" grumbled Jesse from his position on the ground.

The female blonde, Aubrey, folded her arms and scowled at Beca. "I could ask you the same thing, Mitchell."

"Did you guys come here for the hidden treasure, too?" Jesse said eagerly, brushing dirt off his jeans. Beca threw him a look that told him to shut up.

Aubrey and Luke exchanged glances before the latter asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb with us," snapped Beca. "We got here first, so whatever is hidden inside this mansion is ours. We don't share loot. Got it?"

Aubrey raised an eyebrow. "And what exactly do you think is hidden in here?"

"We're, uh, actually not sure," replied Jesse, receiving a smack to the back of his head from Beca.

"Idiots." Aubrey sighed and shook her head. "Just stay out of our way—"

She had begun walking toward the door but was cut off by Beca's small frame.

"I'm serious, Posen. We were here first." Beca clenched her fists and assumed an aggressive stance. Irked by the brunette's audacity, Aubrey responded with her own threatening pose.

"Okay, everybody calm down," said Luke, holding his hands up in a pacifying gesture. "Aubrey, why don't we just explain it to them?"

"Are you out of your mind? They are not part of the mission!" hissed Aubrey. "They're just a bunch of unruly, undisciplined kids hoping to score some weed—"

"Wait, you know what's in there?" demanded Beca. She paused to make sense of their arrival. "Huh... so your Professor wants it?"

The two blondes wore visible reactions to the vitriol that came with the mention of their headmaster's title.

Aubrey and Luke were students at a prestigious and private institute for exceptional young people, headed by someone its students simply called "the Professor." To most people in town, it was yet another hoity-toity private school for the entitled children of the top one percent, but Beca and Jesse knew better than they did. What was "exceptional" about any student at the Barden Institute was his or her superhuman abilities.

But that wasn't to say that the students weren't the entitled children of the top one percent. Though they were themselves "exceptional," others like Beca Mitchell and Jesse Swanson were not enrolled at the institute for specific reasons. Despite this, they respected their common situation enough to keep the true nature of the school a secret, for all their sakes. While it was not exactly a secret that a number of humans have developed unique abilities, history had proved that things never ended well for these 'special' people, even if they did come from a small, seemingly nondescript town like theirs.

But just because they held a mutual agreement to uphold secrecy, that didn't mean they all got along with each other. Aubrey Posen, in particular, harbored a resounding dislike for any exceptional person who used his or her abilities to manipulate non-exceptional people, which put Beca Mitchell in a special case. Because she had powers that were not ostentatious in their form and difficult to prove, Beca got away with doing a lot of sneaky things to her targets. Such was behavior that Aubrey had spent years at the Institute internalizing not to exhibit.

"None of your business," spat Aubrey, knowing how little respect Beca had for what the school stood for. "Now, I'm going to tell you one last time to get out of my way, Mitchell, or else."

"Or else what?" Beca raised her arms provocatively. "Come on, Posen, show me what they teach you up in that school that makes you think you're better than us."

"Guys, calm down," Jesse pleaded—just a second too late.

In the time it took for Aubrey's brow to furrow, and a bolt of white-hot lightning whipped at a spot on the ground mere inches from Beca's feet. It was only a warning shot, but Beca had nonetheless back-flipped to avoid it. Not to be outdone, she quickly retaliated by sweeping the ground with her leg, causing dirt to shoot into the air and shower the blonde. Aubrey shielded her eyes from the dust with an angry howl and struck back, but before her second bolt (no longer a warning shot this time) reached Beca, a metal rod materialized between the two girls, redirecting the lightning to the sky, just as the ground beneath Beca pulled her a few feet back.

The dust cleared to reveal Jesse with his arms raised in front of him. His face was pale and sweaty from both apprehension and the effort of moving the ground as quickly as he had to. Luke, on the other hand, wore an angry scowl on his face. His entire forearm had transformed into metal that stretched out past his fingertips and tapered to form the lightning rod.

"Enough!" he growled. "Aubrey, you're being childish; quit picking a fight with them for no reason. And Beca, if we solemnly swear that you and Jesse get to keep whatever treasure you find inside, will you promise to stay out of our way?"

Beca glared at Aubrey once more before giving Luke a small nod. Hearing him scold Aubrey and not her made her feel slightly better. Satisfied, the Brit dematerialized his metal arm while Jesse dropped his arms and slid the piece of land with Beca on it back as neatly as he could.

Aubrey, meanwhile, straightened up and angrily brushed the dirt off her clothes. She turned around sharply and marched back toward the double doors.

Watching her, Beca couldn't resist remarking sarcastically, "Yeah, sure, pass through the front door. It probably isn't booby trapped or anything."

"It isn't. The foyer is the only place booby trapped," answered Luke, back to his calm and friendly manner. As though to prove this, he joined Aubrey by the door and began fiddling with the keyhole. "With a few goons or maybe some basic droids. Nothing we can't handle."

"And you guys are planning to intentionally set them off?" Jesse asked incredulously.

"The mission was to enter through the front door, go through the foyer, and secure the target," said Aubrey, surprising all of them by actually answering him and divulging their mission objectives. "So yes, if that means setting them off then we are setting them of."

"Aren't you worried that triggering the booby traps might sound an alarm somewhere else?" said Beca. "You know, for the bad guys to send back-up or something?"

Beca was aware that the students at the Barden Institute underwent special physical training to be combat-ready in the event of an emergency—all under the umbrella of 'using their powers for good'—but it didn't seem like Aubrey and Luke knew what was waiting for them inside.

"Regardless, those were the Professor's orders," replied Aubrey, suddenly seeming less confident about the plan. "He knows more than we do and we trust him."

"Besides, if we run into more trouble than we can handle, we could always call for back up ourselves," said Luke, forming an appropriate key for unlocking the door with the tip of his index finger.

Despite looking as old and dusty as it did, the doors swung open without a sound. The moonlight peeked in through the large bay windows opposite the doors, revealing an utterly rundown foyer. The decorative table at the center of the room was on its side, and the vase of wilted flowers that presumably stood on it now lay shattered in pieces on the dust-ridden floor. Cobwebs hung on the chandelier above them and stretched all the way to the grand staircase's bannister.

"Be careful and keep an eye out," warned Luke. "They may appear at any—"

Before he could finish his sentence, a sphere of dark energy materialized out of thin air and began to split open. Out of the darkness within, a small humanoid creature emerged. A knight's helm covered its face and revealed only two bright yellow dots for its eyes; the rest of its face was hidden by an uncanny darkness. The creature had large hands with sharp red claws on each one, and large, clunky, black feet. On its chest was an odd symbol—a thorny, crossed heart.

The four exchanged surprised and concerned looks. They had never seen anything like the creature before—much less the black hole it came from.

Suddenly, three more dark spheres materialized and out of them came three identical copies of the creature.

"Brace yourselves!" yelled Luke. The other three, none of whom were strangers to fights (simulated or playground) prepared themselves mentally and physically.

And so began their first real battle.

Aubrey and Luke regularly underwent high-tech combat simulations at Barden as part of their training, but their opponents had always been robots or brainless thugs shooting harmless lasers or guns. As for Beca and Jesse, though they've had their share of dealing with bullies growing up, their encounter with the strange creatures would the first time they would ever use their powers to actually fight, instead of using them to pull pranks or heists.

They each took one creature to fight.

Beca cartwheeled out of the way as her assigned creature lunged forward, swiping its claws at her viciously. With the creature momentarily disoriented from missing its target, Beca aimed a hard kick to the back of its head. When the creature recovered and lunged again, Beca lured it toward the wall and jumped out of the way just in time, causing it to crash headfirst into the wall from the force of its own momentum.

At the other end of the foyer, Aubrey was sending bolts of lightning straight to her creature's metal-covered head every time it lunged toward her. It could only take so much shocking before it fell to the ground, stunned.

Aubrey smirked triumphantly.

"Watch out!"

A creature landed from the air right beside her and aimed a spinning kick at her midsection. She was able to jump away just in time but the sharp edge of the creature's boot still caught on her shirt and made a small tear.

"This was my favorite shirt!" Aubrey cried in frustration. "Handle your creature, Swanson!"

"Sorry!" apologized Jesse. He had his fists raised and chunks of compressed dirt floated around him. "I had to go nearer to the window to get more of this stuff."

Jesse threw a one-two punch into the air and the chunks of dirt followed his motions and flew toward his creature, knocking it out temporarily and breaking apart upon contact.

"Can't you control rocks, too?" growled Aubrey, trapping her recently recovered creature in a ball of lightning before it could cut Jesse, who was busy compressing the dirt in anticipation of a counterattack. "They'd be more efficient in battle than soil."

"There are no rocks in the garden—"

"There were! Near the gate!"

"That's too far for me to—"

"Guys, this isn't the time to argue!" cried Luke, walking backwards as he parried his creature's swipes with his own arms, which he had turned into two large blades. In one final move, Luke managed to pierce the creature's chest with his right sword arm.

Aubrey, Jesse, and Luke watched as the creature let out a screeching cry, jerked uncontrollably, and dissipated, leaving a floating bright orb in its wake. The orb continued to rise into the air until it, too, disappeared with a small burst of light.

"Was that a—?"

At that exact moment across the hall, Beca had thrown a spear-shaped piece of broken wood like a javelin straight through her own creature's chest. The same scene unfolded before her eyes and she frowned up at the floating orb emanating a bright light. She made eye contact with the rest of them and gave a warning yell as the remaining two creatures began swiping at them again.

Jesse threw more 'punches' at both creatures after which Aubrey, taking advantage of their stunned state, blasted them with lightning. Luke turned his entire body into metal and walked into the field of lightning, conducting electricity with his body, and smashed the creatures' heads together.

They, too, dissipated, and two more glowing objects floated into the air.

"Was it just me," huffed Beca as she approached them in the aftermath of the battle. "Or did shiny hearts just float out of those things?"

"We noticed them, too," said Luke before turning to Aubrey. "What were those things? They weren't the thugs the Professor warned us were guarding the target."

"I don't know," said Aubrey, shaking her head and looking pained at her confession. "But we should proceed with the mission anyway and just report what we saw after."

"All right," Luke nodded after a thoughtful pause. "You two," he added, gesturing at Beca and Jesse. "Are you still going treasure hunting or are you sticking with us?"

"Sticking with you," Jesse said at once, before Beca could say anything. "What? Those things could come out again at any moment. It might be better to stick together and pick up anything we see along the way."

Beca rolled her eyes but said nothing.

Luke broke two legs off a wooden table nearby and Aubrey set their tips on fire with a spark of electricity to make torches for Beca and Jesse. They had their own Barden-issued flashlights so, with all four of them equipped to traverse the the narrow, windowless hallways they proceeded up the grand staircase.

They inspected nearly every room they passed, all of which looked just as rundown as the entrance hall. Occasionally, the thick film of dust covering everything would make Jesse sneeze loudly, causing Aubrey to roll her eyes and Luke to chuckle and say, "Bless you." When they had been going through the mansion together for almost twenty minutes, Beca felt certain that there would be no more encounters with those creatures. So she suggested that they split up to make the search go faster.

"Okay," agreed Luke, "but let's stay in the same wing so we're still within yelling distance of each other."

"You know, it would help if you just told us what you're looking for," shrugged Beca.

"You'll know it when you see it, Mitchell," said Aubrey, not unkindly. Seeing Beca do well in real combat raised the respect she had for the brunette, but not enough to divulge the mission's objectives.

Beca sauntered off looking for the farthest room, deep into the West Wing. If someone wanted to hide something, they would make it difficult to find, she thought.

She was walking down a narrow hallway, observing the various paintings of landscapes or still life that she passed, when the area around her ankles felt a sudden brush of cold air. It came from the door on her right. Without giving it a second thought, Beca grasped and turned the handle.

A gust of cold air blew her torch out but she didn't notice it, on account of being momentarily blinded by the bright white light that emanated from the room. From the other end of the hallway, Jesse easily noticed the sudden presence of light and saw Beca standing before it.

"Did you find it?" he called out.

After blinking a few times to adjust her eyes, Beca realized that the room was painted and decorated in pure white, which added to the blinding sensation after having been walking around in the dark for half an hour. But what was strangest about the room was that its large windows, which under normal circumstances would have given a view of the gardens at night, were just a pure and inexplicable white light. Nobody could tell it was the middle of the night, being inside this room.

But Beca's eyes had barely registered all of that, because they were instantly drawn to the center of the room, drawn to the most breathtaking sight they had ever had the pleasure of seeing.

"Not it," breathed Beca. "Her."

A/N: If you're curious about what the abandoned mansion looks like, you can search 'Kingdom Hearts Twilight Town Old Mansion' on Google Images. It is very loosely based on that.

Thanks for reading! I hope the story interests you and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about it.