DISCLAIMER: This is the story of a girl, who cried a river and drowned the whole world…because, sadly, she does not own Kingdom Hearts…

Chapter One, The Apple

"Ha! Take that, Axel!" Roxas hollered triumphantly. His sapphire eyes glittered in the joy of victory. Axel, however, was looking angry, but determined, his emerald eyes fixed on the computer screen in front of him, where his blood red convertible was hopelessly ensnared in a bush, while the words "GAME OVER" flashed on the screen.

"Aww, C'mon, best two out of three?"

Roxas smiled as his dark green car did a lap of honor. "You're on! I can keep beating you all day!"

"We'll see about that," said Axel, rebooting the game.

"Are you two playing that dumb car racing game again?" asked Namine, walking into the room.

"Riku was playing Madden 2006 for, like, six hours yesterday," replied Axel, preferring not to answer the question. Namine's sky blue eyes narrowed in frustration as she swept a strand of light blonde hair out of her face. She folded her arms across her chest. "Yes, but Riku was also the only one who could get this computer to work," she reminded them.

Roxas looked up sheepishly. "Sorry, Namine. We'll be off in a few minutes, okay?"

Judging by Namine's furious expression, this was not okay, but she simply muttered to herself "I knew that getting an Apple computer was a big mistake," and sat down on the couch to wait for Roxas to finish his next game against Axel. As Roxas and Axel began their next game, however, they were interrupted once more.

"Hey, has anyone seen Sora around?" asked Kairi, walking through the door, which Namine had left wide open. Axel shook his vividly red head no, never once taking his eyes of the computer screen. Roxas, on the other hand, paused the game and looked up at her. Realizing that his car couldn't crash into anything when the game was paused, Axel also turned to look up at Kairi.

"He's not here," Axel stated bluntly. Playing the computer all morning had made him feel a little stupid.

"Way to point out the obvious, Axel. I was wondering if you could tell me where he is," Kairi said, her aqua eyes narrowing in irritation.

" I could," said Axel with a smirk "But whether or not I will is another matter entirely.

Kairi put her hands on her hips, not in the mood to put up with Axel's crap. "Do you know where he is, Axel?"

Axel continued to smile "No but if I did know, I could tell you, but I don't, so I can't, but if I knew, I could."

Kairi turned away from Axel in disgust. "Roxas, you don't know where he is, do you? He's been missing all morning!"

Roxas shook his head "Sorry, Princess," He said, using a nickname that he had begun calling her because of the fact that she was a princess of heart. "I haven't seen him either,"

" That's because you've been in here all morning playing video games!" scolded Namine, while Roxas looked rather ashamed. Namine then turned to Kairi "I haven't seen him around either."

"Seen who?" asked Sora, walking in the room with a bitten apple in one hand and his keyblade, Oathkeeper, in the other.

"You!" exclaimed Kairi, giggling a little. " Where've you been all morning?"

"Riku and I were practicing fighting, and it took a longer than we thought," said Sora apologetically. His brown semi-spiked hair and robin's egg blue eyes gave him a cute, innocent appearance, as though he were merely fourteen instead of nearly seventeen.
"Riku needs all the practice he can get," snickered Axel.

"Actually, I won," said Riku coolly, walking in behind Sora, keyblade still in hand.

Axel raised his eyebrows, and opened his mouth, probably to make some sort of sarcastic comment, but Roxas spoke before Axel could say a word. "Come on, let's finish this game already so Namine won't be even more mad than she already is," he said, not wanting a fight to transpire.

For the next few minutes, Axel's concentration was taken off of tormenting Riku, his favorite pastime, and his attention was devoted entirely to keeping his scarlet convertible from crashing. Unfortunately, it still looked as though Axel was going to lose the round, as Roxas' car neared the finish line. Frantically, Axel began smashing down random buttons on the keyboard, mumbling to his self all the while "Oh c'mon, I know this cheat code works somehow…"

"Hey! No cheating!" said Roxas indignantly, while his car went around the last turn of the course and was seconds away from winning.

"Too late," Axel smiled as his car was instantaneously placed at the finish line. This time it was the red convertible that had the privilege of completing a victory lap.

"That is so cheap! You can't do that!" said Roxas, angry because he had been conned out of another victory.

"I just did," said Axel, as they got ready for the third round.

"Don't bather trying to stop him, Roxas, cheating is how he survives," said Kairi, who was still annoyed at Axel for previously inconveniencing her.

As the third round started, Axel began again trying to press the succession of buttons that would make him win.

"How do you do that?" asked Roxas, also reaching for the keyboard, tying to push the same buttons that Axel had, while maneuvering his car around the track.

"Get your hands away from there!" shouted Axel, shoving Roxas' hands away from the keyboard.

Riku looked nervously at all of the button s being hammered down by Roxas' and Axel's hands, and noted the protesting beeping noises that were being emitted from the computer.

"That's probably not good," he said, wincing. Namine buried her face in her hands, in a gesture that clearly stated 'Why on earth did I agree to getting a new computer? Why? Dumb Namine! Dumb!' Kairi was laughing at the sight of Axel and Roxas fighting each other for complete domination of the keyboard, and Sora was eating the rest of his apple with an amused expression on his face.

All of a sudden, there was a loud crash and smoke filled the room. Axel and Roxas immediately ceased their arguing.

"Fire!" shouted Sora, seeing the smoke and not thinking very clearly.

"It wasn't me!" Axel denied it swiftly. "Besides, this isn't that kind of smoke, this is a different kind…"

"Like we should trust you about anything!" said Riku angrily, momentarily forgetting that if anyone in their party knew about smoke or fire, it was Axel. "We all know you aren't exactly the smartest person here! I mean, look what you've done now! Broke the computer, probably, which would explain this smoke. That thing was brand new, too! Axel, if I could see you, I'd strangle you!"

Axel, secretly thankful that Riku couldn't see because of the smoke, said, "Why are you so upset? Were you going out with the computer or something? There's no need to get so worked up over it!"

" Do you know how much that computer cost? Now I'M the one who has to get it repaired, with MY own munny!"

"Why isn't the smoke clearing?" asked Sora, a little nervously. " It should've cleared by now. I'm kind of getting a little uneasy."

As if to pacify Sora, the smoke slowly lifted to reveal their surroundings. They certainly weren't where they had started out, and the girls were nowhere in sight.