Hero's Heart Chapter 2: Beginnings

Ok I fixed a few mistakes in the first chapter, I still don´t know how it happened. This is actually the longest chapter yet, Chapter 3 won´t be as long though. Thanks to everyone that read Chapter 1!

Disclaimer: As much as I would want to I do not own Kindgom Hearts. They belong to Square Enix and Disney.

Oh and this story contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the Kingdom Hearts Series. If you haven´t played it then do it now. Seriously what are you waiting for?

Enjoy...

The stars or rather WORLDS looked beautiful outside from the luminous interior of the gummi ship, each seemed to glow with a distinct color. Sora remembered watching the stars at night with Riku and Kairi back at the islands, never would he have thought that one day he would be in a quest to save them. Overall it was a sight that never ceased to amaze Sora, even when the trip to Radiant Garden was rather uneventful.

Radiant Garden changed little while he was gone, if anything more people wandered the streets, and new shops had opened. Apparently the world formally known as Hollow Bastion was doing very well. Sora slowly made his way across the streets after saying goodbye to Chip and Dale, he waved at the familiar faces as he passed by them on his way to Merlin's house.

"HEY SORA OVER HERE!" Shouted an all too familiar voice, it came from a teen with short black hair. She wore a black shirt with flower patterns, khaki shorts and had an oversized shuriken in her hand. It belonged to none other than Radiant Garden's #1 ninja (not that there were any others).

"Hey Yuffie." Sora said approaching her, his trademark grin on his face. "How is everybody?"

"Well Aerith, Cid, and I were just over at Merlin's, Squa- I mean LEON is at the Bailey, we have no idea where Cloud is, Tifa is still looking for him." Said Yuffie.

Sora laughed at the last comment, Cloud and Tifa had joined the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee shortly after the battle at Hollow Bastion. The two of then still had to work out some problems though. While Cloud wanted to fight his inner darkness alone, Tifa insisted on doing it together. This made Cloud try to constantly avoid Tifa. Tifa on the other hand was constantly trying to hunt Cloud down. Sora kind of felt sorry for Cloud though, Tifa was scary when she was mad.

'I agree she is kinda scary.' Roxas said in his mind. 'Remember how she trashed Ansem´s study in her search for Cloud?'

'Yeah I do, scary as it was it was thanks to her we found the password to the data space.' Sora thought. After entering the world in Ansem´s computer for the first time. Sora was asked by Tron, a computer program, to get the password. The key to finding it was written on the wall behind a heavy portrait of Xenahort. Tifa lifted it almost effortlessly revealing the clue behind.

Sora made his way to Merlin's house, it was located in and area with several houses that were now in the process of being fixed. A familiar sight met Sora when he entered. Aerith quickly greeted them with her usual warm smile, she wore the outfit as last time, a pink dress, brown boots and a signature pink bow in her hair. Cid was sitting in front of a computer, he wore his usual pants with a white shirt that seemed to be stained with a bit of motor oil, a toothpick was in the blonde's mouth. Last but not least Merlin was standing up while waving his wand like a conductor would to orchestrate a band, several books and other objects flew into his bag. Sora was very surprised the first time he saw the wizard do this, now after years of seeing the wizard perform magic it was but a very amusing scene to him.

"Hey Sora we missed you, how have you been?" Aerith asked in her usual sweet motherly tone.

"About time you got here." Cid said in his usual tone of voice.

"I'm Ok, looks like everything's back to normal too." Sora said grinning. "Anyways did you guys need me for some mission, oh and what with Merlin packing?"

"Ah my boy, I will be making a trip to my world soon, a young lad there needs my guidance, he will become a future king, you know." said the wizard. "I will be back in a couple of weeks."

"And about the mission, we are waiting for Leon to get here so that we can give you the details." Cid said. "Yuffie go get him."

"Why do I have to get him?" Complained Yuffie, stomping her foot.

"Cause you are the fastest, miss I-can-disappear-in-a-cloud-of-smoke." Cid said. Sora tried to hold back a laugh, it was true Yuffie was always boasting about her speed.

"Fine I'll do it." Yuffie said before she left through the door.

After a brief moment of catching up, Yuffie appeared through the door with Leon. Leon was a young man that looked like he was in his twenties a unique scar ran diagonally across the bridge of his nose The brunette hadn't changed one bit, he still wore his black pants with many belts, a white shirt underneath a black leather jacket that had a fur trim around the neck and a pattern of red wings on the back, a lion pendant hung around his neck and of course his gunblade was held over one shoulder. Despite the tough and stoic looks, Leon was a very caring person. After being together for so long Leon had taken a liking to the keyblade master. He viewed Sora as a little brother, and was often worried about his well-being.

After the greetings were over Cid began to explain the mission. Apparently a strange reading was coming from a far-off world, one that Sora had never been to before. The reading was really strange and was causing all sorts of disturbances in the space that surrounded the world. Sora's mission was to investigate what was causing these disturbances and put a stop to them.

"We haven't been able to make contact with that world before, so be discreet." Cid said.

"Most importantly since we don't know anything about the disturbances be careful, and stay alert." Leon said in his calm voice. "There will probably be heartless so don't take any chances."

Sora probably knew this better than anyone else. Heartless were the darkness in one's heart made real. Those that lost their hearts, or willingly gave in to the darkness became heartless. They acted on pure instinct, mindlessly collecting hearts in an attempt to recover what they lost. In his previous journey the heartless not only targeted people but actual worlds. Each world had a heart of their own and when that heart was overrun with heartless the world would simply disappear.

Destiny Islands was also at one time overrun by heartless and that's what lead to the start of Sora's journey and his discovery of the keyblade. He traveled the worlds in search of each world's keyhole. Sealing a world's keyhole with the keyblade would stop the world from being overrun. The keyblade was a mysterious sentient weapon that chose its master and had the ability to open or close any lock. In reality it was what the heartless most feared. Sora remembered Leon telling him that as long as he wielded the keyblade the heartless would continue to come after him.

At one point Sora also became a heartless, it happened more than a year before in Hollow Bastion's castle. In order to save Kairi he sacrificed himself. It was also because of Kairi that he was able to regain his heart. What he wouldn't know until much latter was that the incident had also given birth to the nobodies Roxas and Naminé. Nobodies were the empty shells left behind when a strong hearted person lost their hearts. They had no hearts like heartless, but rather than acting on instinct they could reason and plan. Organization XIII was made up of nobodies, Roxas was a former member too. Although they were only trying to be whole again, their methods for accomplishing that were less than saintly.

"Don't worry I'll try to be careful." Sora said grinning.

"We are counting on you." Aerith said calmly.

"We will keep you posted from here." Cid said.

After saying goodbyes to everyone Sora left for Hollow Bastion's gummi hangar. There he chose his gummi ship for this journey: The Phoenix. This red ship was a little project he started when Chip and Dale taught him to build gummi ships. It took a lot of work to obtain the parts, but in the end he was happy with the results. It had a lot of speed and was easy to maneuver, while at the same time it had powerful weapons and a decent shield. The take off was swift since Sora was now used to flying ´solo´, he admitted that his flying wasn't exactly graceful at first, but years of practice had taken care of that.

The journey took longer than Sora expected. He knew the world he was looking for was far away but this was something else. Before he knew it Sora had passed most of the planets he knew and a few he had never seen before. Because there were no heartless ships in the radar and there was still a long way to go, Sora decided to leave the ship on autopilot so that he could rest a little.

'I wonder what Kairi is doing right now I feel bad for leaving without telling her goodbye.' Thought Sora as he pulled out Kairi's silver charm bracelet.

'Don't worry we all know what's at stake her. Riku and Kairi aren't trying to be your ball and chain, they're trying to help you.' Replied Roxas. 'Besides the sooner you finish the mission, the sooner you get to see Kairi.'

'Yeah the sooner we finish the sooner YOU get to see Naminé.' Sora said with a smirk on his face.

'Lets just get some rest and focus on the mission tomorrow.' replied the nobody. Despite the response Sora could feel him blushing.

Knowing what his other self was feeling felt weird. At first some of Roxas's feelings seemed to express themselves through Sora. He first noticed this when saying goodbye to Hayner and the others before heading to Yen Sid's Tower. Despite being their first meeting Sora had inexplicably shed a tear. Roxas knew Hayner and the rest, the ones he knew however were inhabitants of a virtual Twilight Town. His memory had been wiped clean and he was given a new identity to throw off the organization while Sora's memories were being restored. During that period of time Roxas became good friends with Hayner, Pence, and Olette. Sora was sure that the real Twilight Town gang had been affected by their virtual selves, otherwise they wouldn't have felt that they knew Sora, or even see him off at the train station.

After saying goodnight to each other the lights in the cockpit were turned off and the engine was set on slow, tomorrow they would reach their destination. The gummi ship continued to float silently in the vast reaches of space, like a small sailboat in an endless ocean. Outside Sora could see the glow of many unknown worlds, the enticing luminescence of nebulas and the dreamlike beauty of galaxies light years away. The Keyblade master closed his eyes after seeing the beautiful display, in his mind the only thing he could think of were his friends. Soon enough he was fast asleep.

The next morning Roxas woke up to the sound of the auto pilot announcing that they had finally reached their destination. As a result, the task of waking Sora up fell on his shoulders. Roxas quickly realized that just telling him to wake up wasn't enough, he had tried. Instead he separated himself from Sora like he occasionally would. Once Roxas's transparent self appeared next to the keyblade master, he proceeded to push him off the makeshift bed he had been sleeping on. Sora woke up on shock after realizing he was on the cold floor and that his head hurt. After seeing Roxas's transparent yet very tangible self in front of him, it became obvious of what had happened. Roxas reunited with Sora in a display of blue light as soon as their argument was over. Sora then proceed to land The Phoenix on the strange world they had been sent to, sending a message to Cid to announce their arrival.

In Radiant Garden Cid had already woken up. He was headed to Merlin's house to check if he had gotten any news from Sora. The reading had become stronger than it was the day before. This worried him. Whatever it was couldn't be good. They had never gotten a reading like that before, even the reading they got form The World That Never Was wasn't as ambiguous as this was. The sound of an incoming message brought him back to reality.

"Mr. Highwind." Said an male voice coming from the Computer, it didn't sound natural in fact it sounded like it was computer generated.

" Any news Tron?" Said Cid. "Oh and didn't I tell you to stop calling me Mr. Highwind? It makes me feel old."

"Yes Sir. I have some disturbing news about the strange readings." Said Tron. "It would appear as though the disturbances were caused by a massive increase in the world's gravitational field. This is a very rare event, as a result I did a thorough search of the DTD to see if Ansem, my former user, had come across an event as such."

"So did you find anything?" Cid asked, he was getting impatient.

"I am afraid so, if Sora is there it is imperative that you contact him and tell him to retreat immediately." Said Tron in a serious tone. "I am afraid that the last time this happened, it occurred to a rather old world. The increased gravitational pull caused what you may know as a black hole, this began consuming the world internally. The strain on the world also caused heartless to swarm it, in a few hours the world was obliterated from existence."

The world was like nothing Sora had seen before, it looked desolate and old, a depressing yet eerie gray aura surrounded it. Most of it was covered in a thick fog though a couple of crumbling ruins would occasionally stick out. There seemed to be no signs of life whatsoever, not even a plant. Deep down Sora had the feeling that something was terribly wrong. The feeling only got stronger as he moved further on, it was begging him to turn around and get back to the gummi ship. Sora had to be very careful of where he stepped, crumbling pieces of rock were scattered on the ground, the fog made things worse by making it impossible to see where he was going. Sora continued to tread carefully, alert to any possible danger.

So far Sora had avoided summoning the keyblade because it brought too much attention to himself. If there were heartless here summoning the keyblade would only make them swarm towards him. He had gotten to a relatively circular area with four pillars standing in the center forming a perfect square. He also realized it was very cold, he could perfectly see his breath and his fingers were starting to get numb. He continued to walk occasionally casting a weak fire spell to keep himself warm.

'I don't like the looks of this.' Roxas said in a serious tone.

'I know, something feels seriously wrong with this place, I don't like it.' Sora replied.

'Listen I am getting the feeling we shouldn't be here.' Roxas said in a low voice, even though the conversation took place in Sora's mind and no one could possibly hear it.

'You're right, there haven't been signs of any heartless yet, something's wrong.' Sora said in a similar way as he continued walking. 'I say that we continue for another five minutes, if we don't find anything we head back. I don't think we can battle heartless properly here.'

Just as he said that a huge tremble caught him off guard and made him fall to his knees. The fog around him seemed to clear a bit as he heard the earth cracking beneath his feet breaking the eerie silence. Sora quickly got up and jumped out of harms way as the land underneath him began to crumble and fall. He quickly made a run for it. The previously safe ground he had stepped on was now crumbling under his feet. Once on solid ground Sora looked behind him panting. He was at the edge of a cliff, a swirling vortex of darkness lay underneath the ground he had once stood on. The sound of thunder and destruction flooded the air. Another sound caught his attention though, an all to familiar hiss. Shadows began to circle him and soon enough he was surrounded by yellow eyes. It was the heartless.

The sound of running could barely break the eerie silence. A single lonely figure was desperately making his way across the fog that covered most of the dark area. It was a boy barely in his teens, he had spiky brown hair and wore a strange outfit. It consisted of black shorts with red pouch-like bags at the side of either leg, attached by yellow straps. A blue and red shirt was worn underneath a black hoodie, a crown pendant hung from his neck swinging side to side as he ran. The teen also wore fingerless gloves, oversized shoes with a similar design as the rest of his clothes. His most amazing feature however were his eyes, they were a beautiful shade of azure. Their beauty however was shadowed by the uneasiness that the eyes expressed.

Sora warily eyed his surrounding as he continued running, he knew he was being followed. He also knew that if he didn't get back he would die, or worse. Sora looked down to see that he could see his own breath, it was colder than he thought, to make things worse he could barely see where he was going because of the thick fog. Suddenly the brunette felt a chilling sensation down his spine followed by goose bumps, he knew the sensation all to well, THEY were coming.

This brought us back to the beginning. How a simple mission had turned out for the worst. Sora was now running for his life in a hostile dying world far away from the comfort of his world. Truth was he couldn't afford to stop and fight, he was on a time limit. The world around him was crumbling as he ran. Running from the heartless didn't leave him unharmed however, he was covered in scratches that stung as he continued to move. Occasionally he would cast a spell when he became surrounded, or too wounded, but he was getting tired, he couldn't keep this up for much longer. In his mind Roxas urged him to continue but soon he couldn't hear Roxas well. It was like there was some kind of interference.

Cid was typing frantically into his computer and shouting at the communicator. Since hearing the disturbing discovery from Tron he had not stopped sending messages to Sora. The HBRC had all gathered around Cid in hopes of contacting the keyblade master. Unfortunately Sora hadn't responded. This meant he had already left the gummi ship. To make matters worse the readings were getting stronger and stronger. If Sora did not leave the world soon he would get caught up in the chaos. Cid didn't even want to think of what would happen to Sora. He was the first one to find the keyblade master when his world was destroyed. A huge feeling of guilt flooded Cid, it was partially his fault that Sora found himself in that situation, the other members didn't feel any better. At this rate it was a matter of minutes before the world was destroyed.

Sora stopped, panting heavily. He had finally reached the open area with the pillars, the gummi ship wasn't far now. He wiped the cold sweat from his brow, his heart was racing and he felt cold daggers in his chest, as he tried to move his muscles ached in protest. Sora moved to the center of the area as the fog surrounding his feet swirled. Suddenly heartless began to swarm around Sora, yellow eyes surrounded him blocking his escape. Casting magic had drained Sora, as a result Sora had no choice but to use the keyblade. He extended his arm a flash of light appeared before him, once it dissipated a magnificent blade appeared in his hand. It glowed radiantly like a beacon of light in the darkest of nights, it brought him hope and reminded him of an old promise: it was Oathkeeper.

Just as he was about to strike a neoshadow, Sora felt a similar tremble under his feet. He quickly jumped back in fear that the earth would fall beneath his feet. The atmosphere around him changed, the fog retreated to reveal a pool of growing darkness just inches from him, blocking the exit. The darkness continued to grow as wisps of darkness appeared from the pool. Around him the heartless that had previously surrounded him began to retreat, in a desperate attempt of self-preservation. Soon the darkness covered most of the area, from it a load roar could be heard. Sora braced himself, his injuries hurt and he was tired, but it wasn't like he had a choice.

Before Sora knew it, a large behemoth of a heartless stood before him. It was huge, almost the size of Groundshaker though Sora didn't even want to entertain that thought. It was black like the darkness that spawned it, and stood on all fours swinging its spiked tail. It had hooves on its hind legs and huge red claws in the front. The creature's front legs, chest and neck were concealed underneath a flaming mane of darkness. On its back were several wisps of darkness moving around wildly like the tentacles of an anemone. The heartless had two huge twisted horns on it's head that pointed forward menacingly. It had a long beastly snout with jagged teeth, black fire flared from its mouth as it breathed. Its evil yellow eyes stared at Sora intently like a predator would look at prey. A deafening roar emanated from the creature as it lunged forth and attacked.

To be continued…

Crystal: "Hello I´m Crystal, Canis´s best friend and beta reader. I must say that making my best friend get addicted to fanfictions to the point where she started her own has made me feel good. Dont´t worry, I´m hitting her over the head right now for the cliffhanger."

Canis: "Owww that hurt! Was that really necessary?"

Crystal: "If you´re still annoyed with her, sorry but I need her alive since she´s like a sister to me."

Canis: "Anyways Chapter 3 will be up soon. Reviews are greatly appreciated, I would really like to hear what you guys think of the story so far."

Canis and Crystal out.