*DISCLAIMER* Neither Square, Disney, nor any of their properties are mine. Though I, as many of you likely do, sorely wish they were. ^_^

KINGDOM HEARTS: DARK DESTINIES
CHAPTER ONE: Black Skies

Lazra choked as the darkness surrounded him, an unnatural void that seemed to pull the air out of his lungs. Struggling to remain conscious he suddenly found himself on solid ground once again. Sitting up, he surveyed his surroundings. He was on some sort of small platform covered in detailed patterns and images, of strange people and places the likes of which he had never even imagined. As far as he could see was infinite darkness, not at all like the confined places in his home. Standing, he walked to the center of the platform. Just like every night before, a column rose suddenly from the ground. Hovering above it was an intricate, decorated spear, like the ones his ancestors had used for hunting wild birds and other, fiercer monsters.

The voice spoke again, familiar words again, an echo hanging at the edge of his mind.

Do you have the strength?

He stepped forwards, reaching out towards the spear. Never before had he been able to take it. Always, he had stopped himself, or woken up, or some unseen force prevented him. At first he hadn't even been able to approach it.

Can you accept your destiny?

He sensed that tonight something was different.

Reaching out, slowly, his hand closed around the spear's smooth shaft, and he stood unmoving for a tense moment before drawing the spear into his grasp. He released the breath he'd been holding, his shoulders sagging a bit. Maybe this meant it was over. Maybe he was finally finished with whatever message this dream was trying to convey.

The column faded, and slowly a large white door materialized before him.

Do you have the strength to change your fate?

He stood before the ornate doorway, examining its surface, the spear held firmly in his hands. He was ready for whatever came next.

Can you open the door?

Yes. He could. He would wait no longer.

A blinding light enveloped him as the doors were pulled open. He turned away from it to find his shadow stretching out, like a dark giant in his wake.

An accurate description, he decided, as a towering black demon rose from it, roaring a challenge as it stared him down with hungry yellow eyes. Lazra stepped back in shock and horror, but had to spread his wings for balance as he nearly backed off the edge of the platform. There was no wind here and he didn't want to risk his chances in the endless dark below.

Time is running out. The darkness approaches.

Grimly steeling his nerves, Lazra shifted the spear to an attack position.

But don't be afraid.

Right.

Yelling a battle cry, he launched into the air, rocketing towards the beast's head with his spear held before him. It brought a clawed arm towards him in a wide sweep, and he was--

Awake.

"I was wondering why it was so quiet around here today," a voice teased, rousing Lazra completely. He opened his pale blue eyes, squinting against the brightness, to find Mavri's short brown hair hanging in his face. She was inches away from his nose, as if she were about to bite it. Which she promptly did.

"Hey!" Lazra jumped up to a sitting position, while Mavri leaned backwards, crouching at the other end of the hammock he'd been sleeping on, a huge grin plastered on her face.

"You've been sleeping all day!" She said in a mock-stern voice. "Come on, we promised Nat and Kjar we'd help them finish their raft this weekend." Lazra grinned sheepishly at his sister, running a hand through his tousled brown hair to try and get rid of that "just-woke-up" look.

"That we did." He yawned, then smiled at Mavri, gesturing to the edge of the tree branch. "Shall we, Mav?"

"I'll race you!" his sister countered, then launched herself off the edge, spreading her delicate wings to catch the strong winds that blew upwards only a few feet away from the edge of the world known as Vertical.

"Hey, no fair!" he laughed as he followed her into the updraft, beating his wings furiously to try and make up for her head start. She glanced downwards, seeing him approach rapidly, and grinned, pushing herself faster as well.

Soon they arrived at the cave where the raft was being constructed, a shallow crevice in the wall not connected to the network of tunnels that ran through the interior of Vertical. Well, there was the strange dark place in the back of the cavern where whispers of wind could be heard, but none of them were small enough to fit through the crack to explore it, something that had greatly disappointed Mavri when they had first discovered it. Closing their wings as they grabbed onto the ledge, they scrambled inside out of the wind. As usual Lazra had kept pace with his sister but let her win in the end. She never seemed to mind, gloating just as if she had beaten him on her own. He laughed at her teasing, until Nat approached them, a serious expression on his face. "I see you forgot to bring the supplies I asked for," the older boy scolded.

"Oh, lay off 'em," Kjar yelled from further back in the cave where he was working, waving a wing in their general direction without looking up and breaking concentration. "At least they came this time, right?" he teased. Lazra and Mavri had never really stood their friends up before, but they were often late. Mavri gave her most stunning smile and Nat's expression softened a bit.

"And anyways, we DID get the wood," Lazra corrected his friend with a smile. "We stashed it at school yesterday and just haven't picked it up yet. We can't carry it all here ourselves without making a couple trips, so we figured we'd wait until today so you two could help." Nat rolled his eyes and sighed.

"C'mon then, Kjar." The other boy complied, smiling a greeting to Mavri as he joined them, and the four took to the air, soaring upwards off the ledge. To an outsider, it may have seemed strange to find a thirteen year old girl hanging around with a trio of fourteen and fifteen year old boys, but it was a well-known fact in the community that wherever Lazra went, Mav followed. Nat and Kjar welcomed her companionship, as she was a bright and energetic girl who shared her brother's lighthearted nature. Their parents had died in a bad storm when they were young, and though their aunt had taken them in Lazra had become fiercely protective of his sister. The two were so close they could have been twins, and were each other's best friends.

It was late in the afternoon when the four children decided they were done working for the day. The raft was nearly complete, a wide wooden platform supported by what would be five large balloons when filled with hot air. They sat at the edge of the world, looking out across the horizon. The endless clouds below them seemed to be on fire as the sun touched down, and as a glowing line stretched across the horizon several small black shapes could barely be made out. Their destination.

Most of the inhabitants of Vertical were satisfied with their way of life. A titanic pillar of stone riddled with tunnels served as their home, rising starkly above the sea of mist below. No one had ever ventured below the mist and returned, but that wasn't the mystery the children were setting off to solve. No one had reached the top of Vertical before either, as the air grew too thin to breathe long before a top could even be seen, but this wasn't the answer they sought either.

It was the infinite horizon that beckoned them.

"There has to be SOMETHING out there," Mavri whispered, more to herself than the others. It was a conversation they'd had many times before. Anyone who tried to fly away from Vertical always either never returned, presumed dead, or came back starving and weak, barely surviving the return flight. The children had been stocking up preserved food for weeks now as they came closer to completing the raft. The journey had been Mavri's idea, but the raft was Nat's design. He had been inspired by the balloon ferries that were used to carry injured or sick people to higher or lower regions of Vertical. Kjar was their muscle; Lazra was strong, but couldn't match his burly but quiet friend. The four had no idea what, if anything, they would find beyond the edge of the world... Mavri hoped to find new worlds of their own, while Nat was in it for the knowledge. Lazra wanted adventure, not really caring what kind as long as it was different from the daily Vertical routine (though the fact that his sister was dead set on going was a major motivation as well). Kjar... he merely followed along. It was what he always did. Reliable, that was the best way to describe him. Lazra didn't really know why he wanted to come; Kjar seemed to him to be the type that would be perfectly happy if every day in his life was the same. He preferred the safety of familiarity to excitement and danger, despite his prowess in fending off the occasional cloud-drake that attacked their homes.

"Well, we'd better get going," Nat announced, standing after a few more moments of silence as the sun disappeared over the edge completely and the stars slowly became visible. Kjar slowly joined him, stretching a bit. The two boys lived further up Vertical from the cave, unlike the siblings, so it would take them longer to get home. "See you two tomorrow MORNING," the "morning" part heavily stressed, and Lazra grinned widely while Mavri swore she'd get him up in time even if she had to throw him off the edge of the world to do so. With that, Nat and Kjar left the ledge, disappearing out of sight above.

Lazra and Mavri stayed a while longer, Mavri leaning against her brother's shoulder as they watched the stars come out. Vertical's large bright moon came out from above Vertical, casting an eerie light across the cloudy sea below that was almost as bright as sunlight. It was never truly dark on Vertical unless you went inside the catacombs. A deep sigh escaped them both at the same time, and they turned to smile at each other.

"What do you think we'll find out there?" Mavri asked her brother quietly, without looking at him. Another familiar question, but every time Lazra had answered differently, and usually ended up making up wild stories about magic towers or giant drakes or strange people without wings who flew across the sea of mist in giant balloon-ships. The tales always found an enraptured audience in his sister. But tonight, for some reason, he felt subdued, a heavy sense of foreboding pressing on his mind. He was about to answer when she interrupted him. "Hey! A star just disappeared!" Lazra gave his sister an odd look.

"You mean a falling star?"

"No... I saw it! It just winked out, like a lantern being doused..." Laz stared hard at the stars, but eventually gave up, unable to pick out a missing star from the millions above them. The sense of dread worsened.

That couldn't be a good omen.

---

Lazra was roused from a deep slumber by someone shaking him roughly. He groggily sat up, mumbling to himself grumpily. "First time in weeks I have a normal dream and it's interrupted... WHAT!" he snapped, but instantly regretted his harsh yell when he saw his sister's stricken expression starkly against a flash of lightning from outside. It was then that he heard the violent winds rushing past his window. He didn't have to ask his sister what was wrong. "The raft!"

There had been no sign of a storm this bad this weekend. They hadn't made any preparations against it, and the raft would be badly damaged and possibly even swept out of the cave if it wasn't battened down properly. Grabbing a coil of rope on their way, the siblings dashed outside to the porch without another word, but had to stop when they emerged, the door slamming shut noisily behind them. They were literally being pulled off the wide ledge by the force of the wind. A bolt of fear shot through both of them as they relived nightmares of another stormy night like this one, long ago... the night that had claimed the lives of their parents. Grimly, Lazra tied the rope around both their waists, and with another second to get their nerves up the two leapt outwards, spreading their wings.

Lazra grunted as the wind nearly snapped his wings off, and he drew them closer to his body, keeping a worried eye on his sister to make sure she was still connected. Vertical rushed past them and he realized they were rising TOO fast; at this rate they wouldn't be able to slow down in time to reach the cave and would pass it. He closed his wings completely, and though she couldn't hear him shouting over the wind Mavri got the idea and did the same. Even still, they were rising, and Lazra realized it might be safer to sit the storm out in the cave once they got there rather than risk trying to get back home. Their aunt would be worried, but she knew about the raft and would guess that they had gone there.

Finally the ledge of their cavern came into view, and they grabbed at it, almost missing but managing to pull themselves in by the tree branches that grew out of the cliffside. Coming in far enough so that the wind wasn't as bad, they stood huffing for a moment to regain their breath.

"Good, you can help," a voice surprised them, and they looked up to find Nat already there, a coil of rope in his arms. "We climbed down from home," he explained, gesturing to Kjar as the burly teen rose momentarily from behind a stack of blankets he was tying down before returning to his task. Nat smiled grimly. "I'm glad you guys came." Suddenly a shout came from the back of the cave where Mavri had wandered to. Nat and Lazra ran to her side and found her cringing back from a strange creature, a small being of darkness with claws and antennae, its glowing yellow eyes resting on Mavri.

"What... what is that!?" She stuttered. Lazra stared in shock. He had seen these before, in his dreams...

It suddenly lunged for Mavri. She dodged out of the way, but cried out as her wing was cut by a swiping claw. Grabbing a thin wooden pole, Lazra put himself between the monster and his sister, anger mixing with fear. It wasn't a spear, but it would have to do. He bashed the monster over the heard, but it bounced off harmlessly, barely fazing it.

"What is it made out of?" Kjar asked coldly as he came to Lazra's side, holding a curved saw, the best weapon he had been able to find. Nat was still struggling to get the raft tied down on his own, confident that Lazra and Kjar could handle the problem, as he wasn't much of a fighter himself.

"It came from the dark place," Mavri said, pointing to the crack in the wall. It was then that Lazra noticed it had somehow become significantly wider than before. Were there more of these things in there? Kjar slashed at the monster but that, too, did no visible damage.

"We can't fight it!" Nat yelled over the rising wind, which seemed to also be coming from the dark place now. "The raft is safe, let's get out of here!" Suddenly the creature seemed to sink into the ground, and the four stared as it moved like a shadow away from them. Then the shadow began spreading, until they were standing in a pool of darkness. Wisps and tendrils began rising up towards them, and Nat panicked, trying to get to the edge. His feet were caught however, and the darkness slowly spread up his legs and covering his body. The others were suffering a similar fate, Kjar stoically accepting the fact that he couldn't get away and crossing his arms.

"MAVRI!" Lazra screamed, desperately trying to get a hold of his sister. She too struggled to reach him, but to no avail, as the darkness closed over their heads.

"I'm not afraid..." she whispered to her brother.

Suddenly there was a bright flash of light. Lazra staggered, regaining his balance after a couple of seconds, to find the darkness gone... along with the others.

In his hands was a weapon.

He didn't know exactly how to describe it. It looked like a spear, but instead of a sharp edge it was rounded off, with two odd protrusions that he thought looked like a sort of key and a small, rounded nub where the blade would have been, and a strange sort of key chain on the other end of the short pole. Where had it come from? And where were the others?

The shadow-monster reappeared. Or perhaps it was a different one. Lazra didn't care.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY SISTER!" he shouted, enraged, and slashed at the shadow. He was surprised when the odd weapon cut cleanly through the monster, and it keened in pain, staggering backwards. Lazra's eyes narrowed. "So, this thing can hurt you eh? Then TAKE THIS!" He stabbed forwards, impaling the shadow. It let out a sort of low hiss, and without even falling it simply... evaporated was the best word Lazra could come up with, a small glowing object rising from where it had been before and fading. Staring, Lazra examined the spear more closely, wondering how something without even a sharp edge could be such an effective weapon.

He didn't have time to ponder further on the subject, as a half-dozen more shadows materialized around him.

Holding the staff at arm's length, he spun in place, knocking the shadows back, then snapped the spear back across his field of vision to strike a smashing blow on the closest shadow. It, too, disappeared. Using the momentum from his attack Lazra lunged forward, stabbing through another monster with a powerful blow and destroying it as well. The remaining four seemed to get the idea and sank into the ground to reappear behind him, but he whirled, catching two of them with the odd-shaped end of his spear and sending them flying. He jabbed several times in quick succession at another shadow, killing it, then gasped in pain as the fourth raked its claws across his arm. Gritting his teeth, he slashed his spear back and forth in front of him twice, killing that shadow as well. The remaining two were dispatched without further complications.

"Is that all you've got?" he yelled out at the storm, confused and afraid and worried about Mavri, but not about to show it.

Apparently, it wasn't.

A sudden wind picked up, pulling him BACKWARDS, the direction he had least expected. Lazra had enough time to realize that he was being sucked into the dark place somehow, along with most of the rest of the cave's contents, before he blacked out.

Lazra came to his senses to find a bizarre sight. Standing, shaking, he looked out at the ocean of mist in all directions. It was as if the entire top of Vertical had been ripped off entirely, and as he watched Lazra could see large chunks of rock breaking off and being sucked upwards as well. What was happening to Vertical? What had happened to everyone else? Where they dead?

Lazra saw the mist below being sucked upwards like reverse waterfalls. His eyes followed them upwards until he found the apparent source of the problems: where the moon had been, a huge swirling void now hovered, sucking up the world of Vertical like it was water running down a drain. Lazra shivered, afraid, alone, the last survivor of a dying world as far as he could tell. He clasped the odd spear to his chest, somehow feeling strengthened by it.

A roar from behind grabbed his attention.

Lazra slowly turned to face the monster of his nightmare.

The feelings of rage and sorrow at his sister's disappearance suddenly broke to the surface. Uttering a wordless scream of fury Lazra charged it head-on. It brought a massive claw smashing down towards him but the boy leapt over it with a quick downthrust of his wings, no wanting to fly completely because of the wind, and landed on its arm. Stabbing his spear into its hand, he quickly pulled it free again and ran nimbly up the creatures arm as it reared backwards, slamming his weapon into its head at full speed and then hitting it repeatedly on the back of the neck. It swiped and swung at him angrily, and eventually managed to throw Lazra off, but not before he substantially wounded the thing. Power surged through his veins, fed by the strange spear.

A gaping hole appeared in the monster's chest, and Lazra thought for a moment he had defeated it until it began launching large orbs of dark energy at him. With a sweep of his wings for a quick burst of speed Lazra dodged the first two, but couldn't get out of the way of the third one in time. Bringing his spear to bear, he tried to block some of the damage, and was surprised when the spear completely deflected the attack without even hurting him, and sent it flying back at the monster. The beast roared as it was struck by its own attack, and Lazra made use of the distraction to leap upwards and slash its waist. The monster staggered back, then finally began sagging backwards into an unnatural position before fading like the smaller ones had. Lazra crouched, breathless, almost completely worn out, the surge of strength fading. The spear disappeared in a swirl of light but Lazra felt that he could call on it again whenever it was needed.

The wind suddenly picked up again, and it almost felt as if gravity had reversed completely this time. With the growing darkness above him Lazra almost believed it. He latched onto a rock jutting out of the ground, but he was too worn from the fighting to hang on...

Closing his eyes, Lazra was pulled up, away, into the darkness...

Doon't be afraid...


*Chapter 2 Coming Soon! Please review!*