Chapter Three: Sora's Discovery

Sora looked around Jump City, interested in all the sights and sounds. Walking through the city, he noted that there were cars everywhere and that people either drove or walked to get from place to place.

What impressed Sora the most was the fact that he hadn't seen one Heartless since he arrived. Why would he be sent to a world that didn't need the Keyblade Master? Not that he didn't mind that there weren't any Heartless for him to fight, he was always used to fighting.

He began feeling hungry and decided to look for something to eat. He usually didn't think about eating because he usually ate food at Merlin's house with Leon and Yuffie and Cid. But now Sora felt his stomach rumbling and looked up to see a sign that said "Pizza".

Sora had never heard of pizza before, or maybe he had, he couldn't remember, he had eaten all kinds of foods on his travels; his favorite was Sea Salt ice cream from Radiant Garden. The salty sweet desert was a bit of paradise for your mouth. Sora had managed to keep some of the precious ice cream stored in one of his many pockets; he kept it cold using his Deep Freeze spell he had learned from Merlin. He wasn't sure if the old wizard would approve of his use of that spell for freezing ice cream, but hey, when he wanted his ice cream, he preferred not to have it a melted mess in his pocket.

He entered the building and took careful note of people paying for their food. He reached inside his pocket and pulled out the Munny he had with him. His heart and stomach sank when he realized that the currency he'd been carrying with him throughout his many travels was completely useless in this world.

Sora sighed; maybe he could trade his Sea Salt ice cream for a piece of pizza, but then what would he eat after that? So frustrating. What was he supposed to do? His stomach growled again.

"Hey dude, you sound really hungry. You want my place in line?" a voice asked.

Sora turned in surprise as he found himself staring at a boy who could have been his own age; he was green from head to foot and wore a purple and black uniform.

"No thanks, I'm not in line, I don't have any money," Sora told him. Which was the truth. He couldn't pay for anything and hoping he could figure out how to get some money.

"Oh, okay," the green boy said. "By the way, nice outfit. Where'd you get it?"

"I had it made for me," Sora replied. He decided to keep the three Good Fairies a secret, he didn't know if people in this world believed in that kind of thing.

"That's cool," the green boy told him. "What's your name?"

"I'm Sora," Sora replied. "Yours?"

"Beast Boy," the green changeling said. "It's nice to meet you Sora. Are you sure you're not in line?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," Sora replied. He turned and headed out the door. Eating just wasn't possible right now. Get money first, eat later, that was his new agenda.

Sora walked outside, and noticed a man standing on the side of the sidewalk.

"Who will help a man with a good cause? I'll give a fabulous prize to anyone who can keep this ball in the without using your hands. Use this staff and hit the ball up into the air and keep it up there as long as possible, if you can do it for more than a minute, you'll get a great prize, fifty dollars! But only if you use the brand new Slammer 9000!"

Cyborg had seen the man and could never resist a challenge. "I'll try it."

Taking the Slammer 9000 from the street vendor, he tested it out, it was lightweight and he figured he wouldn't have any trouble keeping the ball in the air.

Cyborg hit the ball up into the air and quickly used the bat to keep it airborne as he moved across the pavement in order to prevent the ball from hitting the ground. Sora watched him with interest. He was half man half robot, which surprised Sora; he'd never met anyone like him in all his travels. He wondered what else this world might hold here. Maybe there was a keyhole somewhere in this city. Maybe that was why he was brought here, because he needed to connect this world to all the others he had visited, with that in mind, he'd start searching for it. Right after he got some money to purchase lunch.

He watched as Cyborg kept the ball in the air for 50 seconds. He missed the ball and watched it fall.

"Aw man, I wanted to buy a new videogame with that," he sighed.

"May I try?" Sora asked.

"Sure kid," the vendor said. "Give it a shot."

Sora took the bat in hand and hit the ball up into the air. This was way too easy compared to wiping out the Heartless and Sora easily kept the ball in the air, he sent it flying away from him and Cyborg, who was watching, thought he would lose it.

Sora launched himself out and hit the ball back in the opposite direction and kept it in the air for a full minute and a half before his arm gave way and he let the ball drop.‑

"Congratulations kid," the vendor told him, "you get the grand prize of fifty dollars."

Sora was breathing hard, "Thanks." The man handed him his prize. The spiky haired boy eagerly took the money and was about to go back to the pizza parlor to get something to eat when he saw the sky suddenly darken with a black violet tint in the clouds. That wasn't good, he knew that something was going to happen, and he had a feeling it had to do with him and the Heartless…

Robin paced on the roof of Titans Tower going over his strange encounter with the Shadow Robin in the alley. Where had it come from? He looked over Sora's letter again, trying to glean answers from it.

Will the Darkness that created the Heartless spread to those other worlds, the ones who don't know what they are?

The Darkness. Sora said that Heartless came from the Darkness, what did that mean? Maybe there was a way to stop the Heartless before more of them showed up. He hadn't seen anymore besides the one he had encountered in the alley. Why was it chasing him?

Robin stepped forward, staring out over the bay. Suddenly there was a bright flash of white light and other strange creatures appeared in front of him. These beings, which was the only word Robin could think of to describe them, were able to stand on two feet and had head, but no eyes. They had large gaping mouths and swayed rhythmically. Robin unsheathed his Bo Staff.

The creature, a Dusk as he would later discover, rushed at him with inhuman speed. Suddenly, a white light engulfed him, he closed his eyes to protect them and when he opened them again, he found himself in a place that he would never forget.

It was a vast, empty realm; nothing above him but Darkness, Robin looked down and saw a beautiful stained glass mosaic of a boy Robin had never seen before.

"Sora," Robin told himself. "That's Sora."

That was the only logical explanation. This boy had to be Sora. He had a Keyblade; that was what Robin had used to fight the Shadow in the alley. But that didn't answer the question that really vexed the Titans' leader. Why did he receive a Keyblade? He didn't think that they were given to just anyone, but why him?

Robin glanced around, three pedestals appeared before him. One held a shield, a staff, and a sword.

Robin turned his attention away from the objects before him and examined more of the pictures embossed in the stained glass on the floor. There were more figures, faces of children he didn't recognize. But that wasn't what got his attention. There were two others, their portraits beside Sora's.

"Is that…Donald and Goofy?" Robin asked. He'd watched Mickey Mouse cartoons as a child. He had even believed that they were real, although he soon grew out of that. But here they were, gracefully rendered in stained glass in a place that looked and felt very real to Robin.

"What to choose?" he asked himself.

"So little time…" a voice whispered to him from the darkness. Robin whirled around, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice.

"Take your time…" the voice told him. "Don't be afraid…"

"What do you mean, "Don't be afraid?" what's there to be afraid of?"

"Take your time…" the voice answered. "You hold the mightiest weapon of all…"

It was official. The voice wasn't making any sense. Robin shook his head and turned his attention back to what he was doing earlier, choosing a weapon.

His hand reached out…

"The power of a warrior. Invincible courage. A sword of terrible destruction."

It was that voice again. Where was it coming from and why was it talking to him? Robin decided he should examine the other weapons. Maybe the voice would tell him what they were.

He walked over to the staff next to the sword and held it in his hands.

"The power of a mystic. Inner strength. A staff of wonder and ruin." The power of a mystic. The staff permitted the user to wield magic. He'd seen magic before, which was the only way he could describe Raven's powers is that she wielded magic.

It was very tempting. But Robin decided to examine the shield before making his decision. Setting the staff back on the pedestal, he walked over and grasped the shield.

"The power of a guardian. The kindness of friends. A shield to repel all."

Robin tested the shield. It was lightweight, but it felt good on his arm. He might keep it…he then held up the sword. It also felt good in his hand. But the staff felt as natural as the sword. What to choose.

He was already a skilled warrior, so maybe he didn't need the sword so much. The power of the staff was enticing, he'd never had a chance to use real magic before. Robin made his decision. He reached out and took the staff. Then he chose the shield. Suddenly, both objects vanished.

"What will you give up in exchange?" the voice asked. He held up the sword. It disappeared.

A staff materialized itself in his hands.

"Okay, so now what do I do?" he asked the nothingness.

"Sometimes you have to fight…" the voice told him.

Robin gripped the staff and brandished it fiercely as he saw strange, small black creatures rise up out of the floor. They were similar to the shadow and he immediately knew that it was a Heartless.

Deciding not to be caught off guard, he attacked the Heartless with vicious strikes with his weapon.

There were only ten of them and Robin easily dispatched them with brutal efficiency.

Robin felt the urge to look down and noticed that his shadow seemed longer than normal. Maybe the lighting was different in this place, wherever he was.

"The closer to the Light you are…the greater your Shadow Becomes…"

He thought it was all over when he felt the floor beneath him shake.

He saw the Shadow Robin ascend from the blackness. Robin thought his eyes would pop out of his head, he'd never seen anything as large as the Shadow Robin. It dwarfed Trigon, who was twenty feet tall and had previously been the biggest being he'd ever seen.

Recovering quickly, he charged the enormous shadow and struck at it, he didn't know how this how this creature had come into being, but he had to stop it from hurting him or anyone else. Robin pulled out his grapple hook and fired it, the hook embedded itself around the Heartless' arm and he flew up, continually slashing as he went. The Heartless stepped back but didn't do much to attack him. Robin stood on its head and slammed his staff down again and again.

Suddenly, and enormous hand reached up and knocked him off, Robin fell, he used his grapple again to slow his fall, he managed to land on his feet and charged again.

Robin leaped up, jumping higher than any normal human should be able to, he rose higher and higher until he landed on the Shadow Robin's head. He raised his staff up as ­high above his head as he could and brought it down with a mighty shout as he plunged it into the head of the enormous Heartless.

The Heartless began swaying dangerously and Robin stumbled as he tried to maintain his balance. He toppled off the enormous shadow as it fell to the floor of the Halls of Serenity with a mighty crash.

Robin felt himself become surrounded by a dark shadow that swallowed him light quicksand as he struggled like a drowning man to keep from sinking in.

"Don't be afraid," the voice spoke to him once more. "Remember…you hold the mightiest weapon of all."

That was the last thing Robin heard before the Darkness overcame him.

Starfire walked out onto the roof of Titans Tower. To her horror, she saw Robin, lying awkwardly on the ground, rushing to over to her boyfriend, she shook him.

"Robin, awaken!" she said fearfully.

"…Starfire?" he asked. "Did I…go somewhere?" he asked.

"No Robin, but I do think that you…as they say, "passed out", up here," Starfire told him. "You should come inside. I do think the weather is becoming worse."

Robin looked up and he swore it was raining. He did a double take when he realized that what was falling from the sky was not rain, but resembled the Heartless he had just seen in the Halls of Serenity.

Starfire saw the Heartless and noticed with alarm that they were making their way onto the island where Titans Tower was located and they were starting to climb up the side of the walls of Titans Tower.

"Robin, what are they?" she asked. Robin couldn't believe his eyes; they numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands. How could he possibly defeat them all, and he didn't even have or know how to obtain a Keyblade!

"They're Heartless, and we have to stop them," he said simply. He spotted three coming straight at him as they clambered onto the rooftop. He unsheathed his Bo Staff and charged forward. His weapons wouldn't do much damage against them, but he had to try, and that was all that mattered.

Sora saw the sky darken as well, but unlike the Titans' he knew the significance behind the Darkness. The Heartless were coming. He guessed this world needed him after all. He was standing beside Cyborg who had just received Robin's urgent message to return to the Tower.

"These things won't stop coming. Beast Boy and Raven are on their way. Star and I are doing the best we can, but we can't hold them off forever."

"Tell me about it, man, I'm under attack too!" Cyborg exclaimed as a dozen Heartless fell from the sky and landed around him. Sora was already moving, using his hand to summon the Keyblade.

Cyborg unleashed his Sonic Cannon and fired a series of shots at the strange creatures and watched as they dissolved into thing wisps of black smoke.

He saw the spiky haired boy who had won the fifty dollars holding a strange weapon that appeared from nowhere, fighting the strange creatures. Cyborg had never seen him before, but if he could help out then that was just fine with him.

"Hey! Who are you?" Cyborg asked. The boy plunged the key shaped sword into another one of the creatures as they continued to attack him.

"I'm Sora," the boy introduced himself. He back-flipped over a Heartless sand swept his Keyblade from right to left, destroying Heartless with every stroke. "And you are?"

"Cyborg," the robotic Titan replied. "You know what these things are?"

"Yeah," Sora looked at him. "They're Heartless."

Cyborg as just about to ask Sora what a Heartless was when Beast Boy and Raven flew up and Beast Boy picked up Cyborg in paradactyl form, grabbing his mechanical shoulders, they began flying back as fast as they could to Titans Tower.

Turning to look back, Cyborg saw Sora running incredibly fast, following them at a good pace that seemed faster than even Robin could run when he was pushing his limits. How is it that Sora could run so fast?

"Hey! I can help you guys!" Sora shouted as they came to the shoreline.

Raven turned to him. "Do you need a hand?" she asked in a deadpan voice, offering him her hand.

"Don't worry, I can get over the water just fine," Sora said. He stood still and closed his eyes, concentrating.

"GIVE ME STRENGTH!" he shouted loudly. Raven stared as a white light engulfed Sora. When the light died down, she saw Sora standing on the shore, his outfit was completely different. He was clothed in a night blue outfit, similar to the one he had been wearing and he held his strange weapon in his hands.

He suddenly sprinted forward and leapt up.

"Deep Freeze!" he commanded. Ice sprang from the tip of his Keyblade and he began creating an icy bridge so he could cross the ocean to where the Heartless were gathering around Titans Tower. He was moving as fast as an Olympic skater and Beast Boy changed back into his human form and gaped at what he was seeing.

"Dude! How'd he do that?" he asked.

"Don't know B.B., but we'll find out soon. Beast Boy resumed his paradactyl form and the three Titans resumed their flight.

"Who is he?" Raven asked.

"His name is Sora; that was all I was able to get out of him before he froze over part of the ocean."

Robin was with Starfire, she had just blasted a dozen Heartless with her Starbolts and used her eye lasers to take out six more. Robin was frustrated. No matter how many they took out, they just kept coming at him. He had run out of explosives and bombs and was trying to engage them in hand-to-hand combat. He had been able to defeat some of them but most of the time they just bounced off his blows and kicks and got back up again.

Robin saw that Raven, Cyborg and Beast Boy flying toward the Tower. His eyes widened as he saw Sora himself, in the flesh, finish making his way across the ocean on a frozen pathway the Keyblade Master had created to get to the other side.

Somersaulting forward, Sora landed, summoning Oblivion in one hand and Oathkeepr in the other, he began attacking Heartless. His Keyblades swept through them like a knife through butter as he fought his way toward the Tower.

Raven used her dark energy to sweep through the Heartless, throwing them aside like Moses parting the Red Sea. Beast Boy changed into a Rhino and barreled through them as fast as he could. Cyborg continued sending an endless barrage of laser fire at them, sweeping them away.

Sora saw Robin fighting the Heartless on top of the Tower. He was combating them with martial arts, which reminded him of Tifa Lockhart who lived in Radiant Garden with Cloud Strife, Cid Highwind, Aerith Gainsborough and Squall Leonart. But unlike Sora's friends, Robin couldn't destroy the Heartless with his skills.

Sora plunged Oblivion into a Heartless as he began making his way toward the side of Titans Tower. Flipping back, he kicked out, knocking Heartless into the air. Leaping up, he slashed the creatures, ripping them apart with ease in a manner that would startle anyone watching.

Sora ran forward and began scaling the wall of the Tower, dispatching Heartless as he climbed. Robin spotted him and his eyes widened. Sora saw him too, and without any hesitation, tossed the Oathkeeper Keyblade to him.

Robin saw Oathkeeper flying gracefully toward him. He reached out his hand to take it, recognizing it as the weapon he had used to fight the Shadow Robin in the alleyway. Robin caught the blade and brandishing it fiercely, he began attacking the Heartless.

Starfie saw all this and hand to wonder where Robin had gotten the strange weapon from. She was about to ask him when Sora ran and did a somersault into the air. Landing on his feet, he joined Robin in attacking the Heartless.

Robin sprang forward, slashing the Keyblade as he destroyed the Heartless. He swept his sword out from left to right, carving a path toward Starfire who was blasting one of them to oblivion. Robin noticed that every time he destroyed a Heartless, that a small heart would float up out of them every time they were destroyed. He wondered if it had some kind of significance.

He saw another Heartless come flying at him, Robin was about to whirl around and slash at it when he spotted Sora as he saw the same Heartless.

"THUNDER!" Sora called out. Lightening came out from his Keyblade and destroyed the Heartless, reducing it to nothing but a black wisp of smoke and a small heart that floated up into the air.

Robin raised an eyebrow. So that was the magic that the voice spoke of in that strange place he visited. It made sense now. But there was so much that did not make sense.

Both boys regarded each other for the first time. They were both trying to size each other up, and they knew that the other was very special, in their own unique way.

"You're Sora?" Robin asked. Sora nodded.

"Yes, that's me. Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm Robin, and these are the Teen Titans."