Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Pokémon or Kingdom Hearts characters. All claims go to Nintendo and Disney.

'Thoughts'

Ages so far:

Ash-16

Sora-16

Riku-17

Kairi-16

Chapter 4: Trainer's Gear/Pokémon Heartless?

Ash quickly went inside and changed back into his day clothes and while grabbing his backpack and the wooden sword he was given. Walking a little ways away from the shack, he saw Sora, Riku, and Kairi getting out of their boats at the small pier. He started to run towards them and them to him.

"Ash! You okay?" Sora asked with concern.

"I'm alright." Ask said, "What's happening?"

"Just like last time." Riku said looking at the sky. He then turned to the rest of the group, "Ash, we have to get you out of here!"

"No way!" Ash said, "I wanna help!"

"Ash, this is no time to argue." Sora said. Just then a Heartless appeared behind them. "You need to…"

"LOOK OUT!" Ash shouted noticing the Heartless about to attack.

Sora and Riku turned around summoning their Keyblades. The Heartless jumped at them and Sora took it out while it was midair. Just then more Heartless appeared. Sora and Riku both got into their fighting stances.

"Kairi, get Ash somewhere safe, now!" Riku said.

"But I…" Ash started

"Ash, go!" Sora interrupted. The Heartless moved in while Sora and Riku started to take them out.

Kairi grabbed Ash's arm. "Ash, let's go! There's nothing you can fight them with here!"

Ash reluctantly gave in and let Kairi lead him to the other side of the island. But, when they got under the bridge, more Heartless appeared in front of them blocking their path.

"Ash, stay back!" Kairi said summoning her Keyblade. She ran towards the Heartless using her Keyblade to take them out. However, because she wasn't very skilled at fighting, she got hit by them several times. She was starting to get tired out. As she took one more out, another one got her from behind causing her to fall to the ground dropping her Keyblade.

Sora looked back and saw her struggling to get up as another Heartless went in to finish her. "KAIRI!" Sora shouted running towards her.

The Heartless jumped at her. But before it made the attack, Ash, who couldn't just sit and watch, jumped in front of Kairi. "NO!" Ash shouted swinging his wooden sword at the Heartless. But as he swung, a blinding flash of light shined from his sword. When the light faded, Ash saw that his wooden sword has vanished, and in its place was a Keyblade. Ash stared at it in amazement, as did everyone else. The handle was in the shape of a Pokéball, with one half red and the other half black. The blade was rather long. The bottom half of it was thin while the top half was thicker and round. The end of it had what looked like the top half of a Pokéball.

"No way." Ash said stunned.

Ash looked up and noticed that all the Heartless that had been there were gone. He then saw Sora running up to him and Kairi.

"HEAL!" Sora shouted holding his Keyblade into the air. Kairi soon had green glow around her. She got up and grabbed her Keyblade. "Are you okay?" Sora asked pulling her into tight embrace.

"I'm fine." Kairi said as they let go of each other. She then looked at Ash, "How did you…"

"I don't know." Ash said looking back at his new weapon.

"We'll worry about that later." Riku said, "Right now, we need to find out what's going on, and hopefully find a way to stop it before the island's lost." They all nodded.

Just then Ash noticed a small light coming from the cave near the waterfall. "Over there." Ash said pointing towards it. They all noticed the light and started to run towards it.

What they didn't know was that they were being watched by someone in a black hood from a distance.

As they entered the cave they ran down the tunnel. At the end of the tunnel they found the source of the light inside.

"A keyhole?" Riku said surprised.

The keyhole was floating in the middle of the cavern attached to nothing. It had a different shape than the ones they had seen before. Sora held up his Keyblade and pointed it towards the keyhole. But nothing happened.

"Huh? Why isn't it working?" Sora said confused.

"Because, your Keyblade will not work for this keyhole." A voice said from behind them.

They all turned around to see a man in a black hood. His face was completely hidden by the hood and his sleeves went past his hands keeping them hidden.

"What the…? Riku and I ended Organization XIII!" Sora said.

"Organization XIII, I am not." The man said, "I am only here to provide assistance."

For some reason Ash found the man's voice slightly familiar.

"What kind of assistance?" Riku asked.

The hooded man pointed at the keyhole, hand still covered. "That is no ordinary keyhole. It is also a portal to the heart of this world which is in danger. However it will only respond to Ash's Keyblade."

"How do you know my name?" Ash demanded.

"That is not important right now." The man said lowering his arm. "What is important is that unless the danger is taken care of, the Heartless will overrun this world."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Ash said turning towards the keyhole.

"I should warn you." The man said causing Ash to turn back to him. "What lies beyond that keyhole, is a danger you must face alone. And should you succeed, this world will be saved, but you will be sent to another world. This, I'm afraid, will be your last moment on this island."

Ash was stunned and scared when he heard this. He looked at the others. "I don't know if I can do this on my own." Ash said looking towards the ground. "I'm not ready."

"Ash." Kairi said causing him to look up. When he did, he saw them smiling at him.

"You can do it." Riku said, "You are ready."

"You're more skilled than Riku and I was when we first left the island to find Kairi." Sora said. "You'll do fine in there."

Ash stared at them; people he had only recently met and not known for very long were putting their complete faith in him. Sure he had learned a lot during his time here but he hadn't ever done this before. "How can you be so sure?"

"Ash, we're friends right?" Sora said, "If we didn't think you were ready even the slightest bit, we wouldn't be telling you this. You'll probably go places that push you to your limit, but you can do it. And remember this, even when things do turn out to be too much, if you need a friend to be there, he'll be there."

Ash looked at them. They all nodded. "Thanks guys. For everything." Ash said smiling. Ash turned towards the keyhole. He was about to hold up his keyblade when Sora spoke up.

"Hold on a second, Ash." Sora said. They all looked at him questioningly. "Why not give your Keyblade a name?"

"Give it a name?" Ash asked.

"Well, every Keyblade has a name." Riku said holding his Keyblade up. "Mine's called The Way to Dawn"

Kairi held up hers saying, "Destiny's Embrace."

"Kingdom Key." Sora said holding up his.

Ash looked at his Keyblade and instantly knew a great name for it. "I think I'll call mine…Trainer's Gear." Ash said. They all nodded.

Ash then looked back at the keyhole. He lifted his Keyblade, Trainer's Gear, and aimed it at the keyhole. A light shone from the tip of his Keyblade and a beam was fired at the keyhole from the light. A blinding flash then shone from where Ash was standing. When it died down Ash wasn't standing there. He had gone through the keyhole.

"Good luck Ash." Sora said.

"We're counting on you." Kairi said.

"Hey! Where'd that guy in the black hood go?!" Riku nearly shouted.

Sora and Kairi turned around to find that black-hooded man was indeed gone.

"We'll worry about him later. Let's see if we can buy Ash some time by keeping the Heartless busy." Sora told them.

"Right." They both said as they all left the cavern.

Through the keyhole…

Ash was currently on an island that seemed to be floating in midair with dark skies in every direction. His gaze, however, was on the giant orb of light that floating about twelve yards above the island's center. Streams of darkness seemed to be dancing around it.

"This must be this world's heart." Ash said to himself.

Just then, several of the darkness streams came down from the heart and gathered into a spot about 6 yards away from where Ash was standing. Streams kept gathering into small orb of darkness when a small burst erupted from the orb leaving behind…

'A Poliwrath?!'

Indeed, the creature that had erupted from the darkness strongly resembled the Water/Fighting type from Kanto. However, the coloring was completely different. The blue had been replaced by black, the white had been replaced by light gray, and although the shape of the eyes was the same they were the color of every other Heartless.

'What's going on?! First, that weird dream. Now, Pokémon Heartless? I don't even what to know what's next.'

Ash train of thought was interrupted when he noticed the "Poliwrath" charging at him. Dodging to one side he nearly avoided what seemed to be a Dynamic Punch attack. Quickly, he summoned his Keyblade and got into his battle stance. Next, the Heartless fired a Water Gun attack at him knocking him back a good ways. Ash quickly got up and started to run at the Heartless, who seemed to be charging up for a Focus Punch attack. Mere seconds before the Focus Punch attack was finished charging, Ash reached the Heartless and struck it with his Keyblade causing it to lose its focus. Ash kept striking it with his Keyblade and in retaliation the Heartless fired a Water Pulse attack at Ash, causing him to double over in pain. Knowing he had to make this quick or risk taking severe damage, he gathered his last remaining strength and jumped in the air bringing back his Keyblade over his head for one last strike. While in the air, Ash realized that he could now jump as high as Sora. Upon reaching the Heartless, Ash brought down his Keyblade with all his might. As he struck the Heartless, it erupted into a black mist and disappeared. The darkness that was dancing around the world's heart soon disappeared after that.

Back outside the keyhole…

Sora, Riku, and Kairi were still busy trying to find off the Heartless, but they were starting to come more in number. Slowly, but surely, they were becoming overwhelmed.

"I hope Ash figures something out soon!" Kairi said.

"Well, he'd better!" Riku responded, "These Heartless are actually starting to overwhelm us!"

"C'mon guys, we got to keep going!" Sora told them, "We need to buy Ash all the time he can get!"

Just then, the Heartless started shaking madly and soon disappeared in the same manner that they had shown up on the island. Soon after, the storm clouds that had formed in the sky began to disappear.

"I guess he did it." Riku said.

"Yeah." Sora responded.

They all turned around to look at the entrance of the cave.

"Thank you Ash," Kairi said, "and good luck."

Back inside the keyhole…

A light was soon shining in the same spot where Ash defeated the Heartless. The light soon faded into three different items. Two of the items looked like plates. One of the plates was blue while the other was a brownish red color. The other item was a small stone. Each half of the stone was colored the same colors as the two plates. Thinking they were somehow important, Ash picked them up and put them in his backpack. After doing so, the entire area around him suddenly turned to black and he soon found out he wasn't standing on anything as he fell through the bottomless darkness and lost consciousness.

To be continued…