Author Notes: From here, things escalate in terms of violence.
As for Alameda Slim, he was generally meant to be a Starter Villain with no true arc of his own because frankly...he's one of the lesser tier Disney Villains by a long shot. It's not much of a surprise that he played a large part the death of Western hand-drawn animated films aside from an occasional release of a hand-drawn animated films before it became CGI animated market. And the concept of a yodeling cow rustler as a villain is silly even by Disney standards. So he's gone by this chapter in order to make way for the more credible villains to make their entrance.
As for why the shield turns into a Keyblade, in the tutorial in the first game, you learn about the game mechanics by choosing one of three weapons, which is heavily implied to be the Keyblade choosing process. The transformation was a more literal meaning of the word.
Chapter 4: Keyblade
Secret Cave
In the empty cave, in the darkness, two yellow eyes with red pupils glared at a door and crawled towards it.
Slowly, it began to rip it to shreds, causing the ground to rumble.
It left as the now empty doorway began to emit darkness that spread like a cancer.
Destiny Islands
Sora looked bewildered at the antics of the duo while ignoring Alameda's ahem.
"What'd you say? I can't understand your buccal lingo..And anybody who says they can is an idiot. Enunciate...," Alameda Slim snorted as he then whistled to the buffalo to ride towards him. He leapt up and landed on the buffalo to ride it.
"Don't call Daisy an idiot! You heard what I said! Gravity!," Donald said as he casted a black orb onto Alameda Slim and his buffalo.
Sora looked in amazement, but realized that during that moment, Riku, not continuing his attack, had gone alongside Kairi onto the ship.
A man in a Akuba hat and drizabone riding jacket came out to greet the two youths.
"Percival McLeach! You varmint! You were hiding in my ship?! I'm in a jam! Get me out!," Alameda Slim yelled out, surprised at the man's appearance.
"Joanna's already busted the door to this world while you were being an idiot...Without any sport to get hides from, this place is a dump...and you're going down with it since it's got no purpose anymore.," Percival mocked the man as he rode off with the ship with Riku and Kairi on board.
A green monitor lizard came out of the cavern and swam towards the ship to get on it as it vanished into the horizon.
"Riku! Kairi!," Sora yelled out.
"Maybe they had a falling out.," Goofy suggested as to why Alameda was abandoned.
"We all know why. He's a tone deaf phony with no talents other than hypnosis.," Donald remarked before the ground shook.
The sky turned dark and the ground began to rupture.
"It's the end of this world. We gotta go!," Goofy said worriedly as he and Donald ran off.
With Donald's concentration broken, Alameda Slim galloped to block the two outsiders' paths.
"You just got me in this mess and I'm gonna make you give me a way outta here...," Alameda Slim said as he did his yodel and played his guitar. This caused the two to have the same sort of eyes that Kairi and Riku had.
Donald while hypnotized opened a dimensional doorway, which Alameda Slim on his steed was about to enter. Suddenly, a shield wizzed by and blocked Alameda off his steed.
The angry redhead looked at Sora, in his frustration, he shattered his guitar to reveal a rifle and shot Sora with it, straight through his heart, leaving a large hole with bone sticking out.
Sora looked blankly as he fell back in a slowly ebbing pool of his own blood.
The shield began to wobble and hover as it glowed.
Out from Donald's hat, came a small and slender anthropomorphic cricket with light green skin wearing a black suit, shiny top hat, white Opera gloves, black shoes with yellow spats on them.
"Jiminy Cricket!," Donald shouted.
"Golly! He must be the one...the one who has the Key to everyone's survival.," said the cricket in a mild-mannered, soft spoken tone of voice
"I thought aside from the King Rat, they all vanished during the Key-Thingy War! Can't be!," Alameda Slim yelled out in shock.
The shield illuminated until it shifted forms in a bright light and became a skeleton key like form. It dimmed to reveal its blade and teeth were silver, the rainguard was blue, and the guard was bright gold. It was 3.5' long with a long silver keychain and a token shaped like the signal on the shield, on the end of the Keychain.
It flew into Sora's hand and healed him of his grievous injury, closing the hole and patching up his clothing.
In frustration, Alameda whistled aloud as cow like entities with yellow eyes and an odd emblem with crossed heart that was black with red outlines, ending in a fleur like tail.
"Get 'em Bovines!," Alameda shouted before noticing Sora was speeding through the cow creatures, skewering them with the blade, causing them to explode in a black liquid mess as the hearts flew outside of them.
"You little rugrat!," Alameda shouted before Sora drilled through the buffalo, head to tail, causing the buffalo to collapse with a hole in the middle of its head straight through its behind. Alameda got up to see Sora looking with a deadly, but dazed look on his face.
"Now, now, let's be cordial here...," Alameda begged before involuntarily began to slash the fat rustler so badly that he collapsed on the ground in a pool of his own blood.
"The Keyblade.," Jiminy explained with Donald and Goofy looking amazed.
"Shoot man! I just wanted to be rich!," Alameda shouted before a gigantic hand grabbed his body from below and rose up- a gigantic black humanoid whose face was obscured by tendril like hair.
"Now, now! This may look bad! But, you're a Heartless right? You're supposed to listen to me by default. To get my land-," Alameda shouted before it crushed his body in a gush of blood.
"Serves him right for disturbing the world border...," Goofy said absent-mindedly with some hidden sarcasm.
"Order- We gotta go!," Donald yelled as he grabbed Sora, who snapped back into consciousness.
"Where's that...guy...," Sora said before he noticed the gigantic being with a large heart shaped hole in the middle of its chest.
"What's that doing here?...And what's this?," Sora said as he noticed the Keyblade.
"It's a Darkside! It's big and too dangerous to fight right now!," Donald explained as the environment gradually became more and more eroded with darkness as the black imps swarmed the land.
"But, Kairi, Riku! My mom!," Sora argued.
"They've been taken...and everyone's dead kid...It's too late.," Donald explained as he pulled Sora into the doorway, much to the latter's distraught.
As Sora was pulled in by Donald and Goofy, he saw the Darkside create a large ball of Darkness and detonated it into purple spores, which when touching the ground, caused the entire area to be blackened.
Sora was pulled into a current that pulled him back as he saw the glimpse of a small round sphere with several landmarks of his home disintegrate into nothingness as the beings scuttled towards the nearest sphere to begin attacking it alongside the Darkside.
Unknown Kingdom
Sora was on the ground of a room filled with gears and gloved hands on cranes. He looked to see Donald, Goofy and Jiminy.
"I gotta go back!," Sora said before the doorway closed.
"You're a Keyblade wielder...you gotta focus on the duties you're now responsible for.," Donald said as he pointed directly at him.
"...Maybe if you get strong enough, you can beat those guys and rescue your buddies.," Goofy explained to comfort Sora's frantic state.
"What's a Keyblade...?," Sora asked.
"There's a lot to unpack...," Jiminy explained, which surprised Sora as the cricket left Donald's hat.
Sora then fainted from the stress of the situation and the use of the newly acquired Keyblade.
Unknown Location
Percival parked the boat at the edge of a vacant valley, where he was greeted by a red fox and bear in clothing.
"I got them.," Percival said as he pointed to the two youths in the back, unconscious.
"I gotta say, I do say, you've got the smarts to pull the wool over that yodeling idiot's eyes!," said the fox in a fast pitched tone of voice.
"Where is Slim?," asked the bear.
"Probably dead.," Percival noted.
After a second pause, they all laughed.
"What a schmuck! He wasn't Slim or a great singer! He's just a fat, tone dead man- get it! Tone dead! Hahahaha! Get it Brer Bear?!," asked the fox.
"Hahahaha.," laughed Brer Bear with no idea of what they were laughing about.
"Do we start up the plan or what?," asked Percival.
"Enough! Welcome them in...," echoed a powerful woman's voice, causing Percival to go into the ship and grab Riku and Kairi. The trio then carried the youths towards an ominous looking castle.
Suddenly, a flash bomb illuminated the area and the three opened their eyes.
Percival noticed a brown haired man in black jacket with a white undershirt and a black haired young woman in ninja garb.
"They stole from us. Brer Fox...I'm gonna bash their little heads in...," Brer Bear said.
"Do that! Where'd they come?!m" Brer Fox snarled.
Percival pulled out his rifle only for the brown haired man to fire a flame blast from his odd sword-gun weapon.
"How does that even work?!," the poacher asked before the flames were manipulated to fire back at the man.
"Damn, they're trying to get the door to Kingdom Hearts to open. We're making damn sure that they don't get a chance.," said the brown haired man carrying Riku as he continued to fire at the trio.
"You're not hitting them Squall? Getting bad luck?!," joked the woman carrying Kairi.
"It's like it's being manipulated by somebody else...and it's Leon. Because no one likes Squalls, not even the name!," Leon snapped back.
"Well, Well, Well. Squally, you're not getting away.," said a smarmy, deep pitched voice as the two saw a gigantic eye of a yellow pyramid, which snapped its fingers and caused the two to be captured in a yellow prism.
"Billy!," Percival said before Bill gave him a look.
"You guys almost blew it, you were being tracked. Don't screw up next time or else...," Bill said as he made an decapitation gesture with his hand.
The three gulped as Bill shrank down to his usual, small size.
"Those fools are gonna try to fight us and rescue their friends...It'll make for some light entertainment!," Bill said as he hovered towards the castle as the others followed him.
Behind the nearby rocks were a blond, spiky haired young man with blue eyes, a raven haired woman in a revealing outfit, a dark skinned man with a gun hand, an orange dog-cat creature with a red mane, a black, closed eyed cat riding a white animal like humanoid, a red garbed raven haired man, a brown haired woman with aquamarine eyes, and a blond middle aged man that smoked.
"We have to save our friends as well...we'll attack at night...," suggested the blond, spiky haired man. The others nodded in agreement.
Next Chapter: Sora meets a King and learns about the new weapon he just acquired.
