WARNINGS: There will be allusions or outright statements of gay relationships, both of the male & female variety. Cross-dressing, coarse language, suggestive themes, violence. Also, it's in an Alternate Universe, so don't get your panties all knotted up.

I grew up; my characters feel too young now. I need to make them grow up in return, so this is being COMPLETELY re-written, same as with Heaven Help Us Now. It will be slow going, but it will happen. Be patient with me, I have a fiancé, a daughter, and a daytime job that take up almost all of my time.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, or any other games/movies/books/characters that are alluded to in this story. I wouldn't be living in an apartment if I did. Thank you.

chapter 001

I remember once, what feels like eons ago, when the different worlds were call connected. There were inter-galactic Gummi highways and intra-stellar fire or water travel. You could send letters from one world to the next almost instantaneously by tossing it into a special Flue-fire, and phoenixes were considered a widely available resource for travel or communication. People could dig a hole, and if they used the right magic during the digging process, they could turn it into a Looking Glass that would portal them to another area. It was the most progressive time…

Hollow Bastion, Neverwhere, Destiny Islands, Twilight Town…all connected by a Gummi highway. All connected to Atlantica and Atlantis by water Transporters that would change your genetic code to that of a mermaid so you could survive for your vacation. Halloween Town was connect thru nature Transporters, usually trees, that would switch your lungs so you could breathe carbon monoxide instead of oxygen; Christmas Town had a Galactic Sled that would that you could dome over, and it would change your body's temperature regulation so you could survive in the below-freezing world. All these changes and so many more, though they were all temporary, were what the worlds had to offer. The Technology was sacred…and it caused so very many problems.

But back to the story, yes?

We'll focus on a group of boys that were best friends before some of them made very poor decisions and were forced to forget about each other thru a process we called Modification. We'll get to that in a mo' dears, don't worry.

The scene is set on a group of boys in Halloween Town. Zexion and Riku Corrazo, ages 6 and 5 respectively; Axel Flynnt, age 6; Demyx Namara, age 6; and Sora and Roxas O'Dalan, twins, age 5. They were playing in the Hinterlands, just outside of town, and as Axel and Demyx were the bravest of the group they were world-hopping using the only nature Transporter available to get to Christmas Town—a huge tree in the middle of the Hinterlands of Halloween Town. They felt a flux around the fifth or sixth world-hop and it caused them to argue something fierce, each claiming the other was the cause of it. Words were said, we know not what they were, but they caused Demyx to lock his teeth into Axel's arm.

In a desperate attempt to unlatch Demyx's teeth, Axel kicked him in the stomach as hard as he could. Demyx was removed from Axel's arm, but he took a chunk of skin with him, and fell back into the Transporter to Christmas Town right as a huge flux occurred. Demyx was trapped, and it took two days to correct the flux and get him out. He was hysterical, upset because he was the cause of his best friend's infected arm and because his best friend was the reason he was trapped in Limbo for 24 hours. His mother decided enough was enough, took him to be Modified, and moved to Twilight Town.

Now, Modification doesn't mean the memories are taken away, not at all. It was just a way of locking memories of certain events, or even of certain people, to be restored at a later date. Couples used it when they divorced, or it could be used if a relative passed away so the person could be at peace until they learned to cope. It could also be used on children if they had to suddenly move to a new world, to lock away the memories of their friends and make the move easier. Demyx had this done to him; he would not remember his friends' names or their faces, but he would remember that he had five very special friends in Halloween Town and that when he moved away they decided to stop being his friends. His mother would unlock the memories when she decided the time was right.

/break\\

About a month after the Namaras moved away, the boys were back in Christmas Town, helping Santa and the elves with presents. Roxas, in the way that young boys do, got offended because Riku told him that he would be getting no presents because he was on the Naughty List. The got into a fist fight, which lasted for an hour. Riku had a gashes in his face and neck from Roxas clawing him, and Roxas had a black eye and split lip. Sora and Zexion began cleaning up the mess, but Roxas sought out Axel for revenge. It was decided that they would push Riku into a box, wrap it like a present, and put a bow on top to wait until Christmas Day to open. They went through with it, and Riku was delivered as a gift to his parents.

That was the last straw for the Corrazo parents, who decided then and there that the other boys were much too wild to be around their precious prodigies. Riku and Zexion were Modified, and they were moved to the opposite side of the Hinterlands so as to avoid any interaction with the remaining boys of the group.

All seemed to be going well until Roxas got it into his head that his older friend needed to be pranked. He dared Axel to go stay for one night in Oogie Boogie's Den, and Axel agreed because it was widely believed that Jack Skellington had gotten rid of Mr. Oogie as some sort of courting gift for Miss Sally. The opposite was, in fact, true; Mr. Skellington had only trapped Mr. Oogie in his den, and Axel would have died of fright if Sora hadn't saved him.

Mizz Flynnt had had enough of that sort of foolishness and decided they were moving, post-haste. She made an appointment to have Axel Modified the very next day, and as soon as the appointment was finished they moved to Neverwhere. The O'Dalans weren't as…insistent on Modification, and when they weren't able to get an appointment for another two weeks, they decided it wasn't worth it. Mr. and Mrs. O'Dalan packed the twins up and moved them to Destiny Islands, where they would be far enough away from the other boys to stay out of trouble.

It would be so long before they thought of any of their old friends again that the twins almost forgot they'd ever lived in Halloween Town.