A/N: Alright, the third chapter is finally here! Now to reply to reviews (first and second chap):
BLack Scepter: First of all, yes, she has wanted to be unseen... and has been! Now, though is her turn to be a hero. WOw, that sounded... cheesy... And second, yeah, she likes Riku. Don't know if he will like her back, though, you'll just have to find out. I was inspired in the description by Kiki's Delivery Service (the movie that I mentioned).
Lily Argetfricai: Yeah, that would be cool. I'm glad you like it!
Dramatical Error: LOL! I'm sure you'll be surprised by this chapter.
Storm Midnight: Thanks for the faves! And thanks about the song, it actually comes from a roleplay I did with my friend. That beginning was inspired by a lot of things. It's one of my favorite ways of beginning a story, and I always wanted to do that once. Yes, I am obsessed with Riku! How could you tell? (I was being sarcastic, BTW)
Ao Kudo: Thanks!
One-Winged Otaku: yeah, I wrote it. It's meant to have a beat following a running stride, like a hunting wolf. I wanted to do an original idea that no one had done or the opening scenes, so I thought making up my own symbols would be a great way to do that.
Oh, the song used in this chapter is Taylor Swift's I'd Lie. I don't own it.
"So," said Sora when I was finished, "in your world we're nothing more than fiction?"
I nodded. "I wouldn't say 'nothing more,'" I replied. "To some people, you're still heroes, even if you aren't real. Parents even think highly of you." I smiled. "And you can imagine how hard that is to accomplish."
Riku smiled. "Yeah, I can."
"We need to find out why this happened," Kairi interjected. "People from other worlds, especially isolated worlds like your Earth, shouldn't be randomly appearing on Destiny Island." She looked around, then said, "I think this calls for a visit to old friends."
They looked at each other, all three of them, and then Sora and Riku nodded.
"Does that… mean what I think it means?" I asked carefully.
Kairi's eyes lit up. "We're going off-world," she said. "You've got three days to pack."
That night, I met Kairi's adopted family for the first time. The mayor and his wife were really nice. It also turned out that my backpack had washed up on shore with me, and inside were things I never expected to see.
"It's my stuff!" I shouted. My comb was in there, my portable game platforms, and…
"My Sansa!" I pulled out the tiny pink device. I turned it on. "Wait a minute, the power bar didn't appear." I shrugged. "I guess there's no such thing as batteries in this world."
I shoved the items back into my backpack, then turned toward the mirror in Kairi's room. It would take me a while to get used to my appearance in this world.
My mid-neck length hair had grown out a little, and it had gone even darker than usual. It was messy, but in an anime sort of way, with the strands pointed at the bottom and the sides cut sort of shaggy, but not so bad it made me look like a hobo. If you've ever seen Bleach, think Tatsuki's hair.�I also noticed that the annoying tendency of my hair to flip up at the end was gone. Please let me keep this hair when this whole thing is over, I begged whatever thing had lured me into this. My clothes had also changed. I wore a black midriff shirt with a griffon on it over a pair of long black pants. I was also wearing a few armbands like Kairi wore in the first game. Around my neck was a chain with a crescent moon on it - the same moon from my dream. The most disturbing thing, though, was the fact that I was transparent, like some kind of ghost.
"Okay, I'm ready," I said, turning back toward Kairi.
She nodded. "The only thing I can think of that you're missing is a weapon, and we can get that where we're going."
Two days later, we met on the beach. My backpack was slung over my shoulder, carrying both my and Kairi's stuff. She evidently didn't have a bag tht would've worked very well for traveling, so I offered to carry her stuff.
Sora led us over the bridge, then set a device down in the sand. After pushing a few buttons, a large, green circle opened up over the ground. "Okay, guys, stand in the lauch circle."
"So that's what the save points really are," I muttered, standing in the circle. I felt a bit light, and suddenly I was standing in a cockpit. The floor was slightly springy, and a bunch of lights flashed over the dashboard.
"Welcome to the Gummi Ship, Miri," said Sora.
"Wow," I said. "It's a lot bigger than I thought."
He smiled. "I guess it's a shock for you, being here for the first time, especially after thinking it was just a game for most of your life."
I nodded.
"Living quarters are that way," Riku said, and pointed. "We installed some after we started traveling together. You'd be surprised at what we do every day. Being a hero's not all it's cracked up to be."
I smiled. "Nothing would surprise me anymore." I looked at him, and again our eyes met for a moment. I felt… happy. For the first time in my life, I felt like I mattered more than just another kid in just another school, and meeting these people was a dream come true. I beamed at him, then went to my cabin. Did I dare to call them my friends?
I was shocked at the answer I gave myself.
It was yes.
"I can tell you his favorite color's green,
He loves to argue, born on the seventeenth
His sister's beautiful, he has his father's eyes
And if you ask me if I love him,
I'd lie"
I bobbed my head in time to the music. Suddenly, I heard a knock on the door. "Come in," I said.
"Hey," Kairi said. "I just wanted to tell you that we're going to arrive in a few hours. You might want to come in later, it's interesting to see a world from the cockpit."
I nodded. "Hey," I said. "Would you like to listen to some music? I found some speakers in my backpack."
"Really?" she asked. "I'd love to hear some."
I connected the speakers, then selected a song. "Let me introduce you to an artist called Taylor Swift…"
Riku walked in a few hours later. "We're approaching Radiant Garden," he said, then his eybrows went up and an amused smile crossed his face. "What are you girls listening to?" he asked.
I turned off the player and stuffed it and the speakers into my bag, which I noticed had gotten a revamp on the amount of stuf that could be crammed into it.
"Shoujo music," I replied.
"Shoujo?" he asked. "Oh. Girl. Right." He shook his head. "I never expect you to speak our language."
"I'm studying it at home. It's a form of Japanese," I replied.
Kairi and I walked back to the cockpit, and the sight I saw almost took my breath away. Circling below us was a planet, like the pictures you see of earth from space but different. I could see a castle, far below us.
"Okay, everyone out," Sora said. I waited, and again that light feeling came over me. Once again, I found myself standing in a place I'd never been, yet one that looked so familiar to me.
A stone city, beautiful in it's own way, standing in the shadow of a castle. All around me, people went about their business, one of them occasionally recognizing Sora and the others and stopping to whisper to a friend or say hello.
He led us down the familiar path tho a small house near the castle. I went to open the door, but my hand passed through it. "Damn it!" I snarled. "Why can't I ever seem to control whether or not I can touch something? It's like I have a randomness factor or something!" I sighed. "Sorry. It's just, I'm not used to this kind of thing."
Kairi nodded sympathetically�and opened the door.
Inside,�a tall man in black was sitting at a huge, wall-set computer. At the sound of the door opening, he looked up. A long scar crossed his face underneath his brown eyes. I recognized him immediately.
"Leon!" Sora exclaimed.
"Sora!" he said, crossing the room. "It's nice to see you and your friends again. What've you been up to?"
"Not much," he said. "School's pretty boring these days, and the island's as small as ever."
"Who's your new friend?" Leon asked, noticing me for the first time.
"This is Miri," Sora replied.
"It's an honor to meet you, Sir," I said.
He laughed. "Please, it's just Leon," he said. "I never was one for titles."
I nodded. Kairi said, "It's because of her we came to see you. As you may have noticed, she's not exactly normal."
"I can see that." Suddenly, he was all business, his eyes serious. "What's going on?"
"We were going to ask you that," Sora replied. "Miri's from another world, one that sounds like it's really separated from ours, but she washed up on the beach, just like Kairi did ten years ago."
"That is a problem."
All of a sudden there was a large POOF, and an old man dressed in a blue robe appeared in a puff of smoke. "A very serious one indeed," he said.
"How does he do that?" Riku, Kairi, Sora, and I all muttered at the same time. Kairi and I started to giggle, then became serious again.
"Merlin!" Sora said. "What can you tell us about this?"
"The balance of the worlds has been upset," he said. "Could I have a look at your friend?"
"Sure," I said.
"Hmmm," he mumbled gravely. "It seems you've become a wandering spirit," he said to me.
"Is that like a ghost?" I asked.
"No. You're not dead, just missing a body. You have more in common with Roxas and Namine. You must find yourself before you can be complete."
"What do you mean, more like us?" asked a new voice. "I thought we were Nobodies."
I turned to see a transparent figure standing next to Sora. It was Roxas.
"Ah, Roxas," Merlin answered, "you and Namine are special. Neither of you were born like other Nobodies. Your main difference is that you have hearts and no bodies, rather than bodies and no hearts. Although you were born of someone losing their heart, you're not actually Nobodies."
"Great, now I'm even more of a freak," Roxas muttered.
"How do I get back to normal?" I asked.
"I just told you," said the old wizard. "You must find your body. But, of more pressing urgency, is how you got here in the first place. The walls between the worlds are thinning again. Thinning greatly, for Earth to be involved."
"How did you know what world she was from?" Sora asked.
Merlin sighed. "Earth is a very special world, my young friend. It is the orginal from which all other worlds were split. When the One World was destroyed, Earth was sealed off from the others. It has no magic whatsoever, so whenever a being from Earth travels to one of the other worlds, they have a distinct aura."
Leon interjected suddenly. "I thought Earth was only a legend."
Merlin shook his head. "No. It is very much real. Something is going horribly wrong, though. There hasn't been a traveler from Earth in hundreds of years. In fact, there has been only one in the entire�history of the worlds."
"Wow." That was all I could say. I mean, how often do you find out your planet is some legendary piece of a huge legend you had thought was only a part of some video game?
That was a rhetorical question, by the way.
"So I guess that means we're going on another journey, huh?" asked Sora.
Leon nodded.
"No leaving me out this time!" Kairi said.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
"Then it's settled!" I cried. I was giddy with happiness. "Next stop: adventure!"