Sora, Donald, and Goofy were soon back in Radiant Garden. They landed near the town entrance this time so they could pass through the market and buy some supplies.
While restocking, Sora noticed three people sitting on the top of a low wall, eating some blue-colored ice cream. They were obviously enjoying it, and talking among themselves as if they were friends, which they probably were. Sora thought that the ice cream was Sea-Salt Ice Cream, since it looked the same, and recalled how much he liked it himself. His other half, Roxas, enjoyed it too, but Sora could not recall how he had learned that.
Finished with supplies, the trio moved on from the market, going to Headquarters to see if the survivors had found Leon and the others yet.
"So there are survivors?" Leon asked Sora, who'd finished telling them about events in Traverse Town.
"Yeah," Sora nodded. "Three, named Danny, Sam, and Tucker. Two boys and one girl, Vin said."
"Hm," was all Leon gave in response.
Yuffie spoke up energetically. Then again, she did everything energetically. "Do you think the three survivors are the same three people we saw earlier, Leon?"
"What?"
"More Heartless appeared like you said they would, Sora. There was an attack in the construction zone, and we got the alarm, but there were three people already there fighting off the Heartless. And they won, too. We didn't have to interfere at all."
"Really!? Where are they now?"
"I don't know. They went back into town."
Leon spoke again. "There were two boys and a girl. One of the boys had dark skin. The three seem about your age. They also all had weapons, and seemed to have some experience fighting. The other boy, he was most skilled of them and seemed to be the leader."
Sora recalled the trio he'd seen eating ice cream in the market.
"Hey, Sora," Goofy said, attracting the attention of the others, "weren't three people like that in the market? One of them had dark skin."
Sora realized that Goofy was right. "Hey, yeah, they were there," he said aloud.
"Perhaps you should go find 'em again before they leave," Cid said from his seat at the computer bank.
"They won't leave," Aeris admonished him. "They're looking for us, remember?"
"Go find them, Sora," Leon ordered, "and bring them back here."
Danny, Sam, and Tucker, upon finishing their ice cream, decided to explore the town more to look for the tower-that-is-not-a-tower in hopes of locating the people Vin had told them about.
"We're back here again?" Tucker sighed as they came back around to the construction zone where they'd been attacked.
They'd tried to go through the town a different way, but they'd only finished going in a circle from the route they'd taken before. And they still didn't know where Leon or the others were.
"They are supposed to be here, right?" Sam asked, glancing around the area and at her two friends.
"Vin said Radiant Garden, and this is Radiant Garden," Danny commented.
Danny felt a strange twisting feeling suddenly in his chest, and his hand shot to the place.
"Danny, what is it?" Sam asked, concerned at Danny's expression of discomfort.
"It's like my ghost sense," he tried to explain. The feeling was in the same place that his ghost sense came from, but it wasn't the same at all. It was like his core was being twisted, in stead of chilled like usual. "But it's wrong."
Heartless suddenly appeared surrounding the group and alarms went off, triggered by the enemy presence. Mixed among the Heartless were a few very different creatures, pale in color with a definite aura of other-ness from the Heartless. They didn't seem to be as solid as they Heartless, as if they weren't all there, but the Heartless didn't feel complete either, in a different way.
None of that mattered because both types of creatures were attacking. Danny set the twisting feeling in the back of his mind and focused on fighting as weapons sprang to the hands of all three of them and they fought back.
Sora was halfway to the market when the city's alarms went off, signaling a Heartless attack.
Donald and Goofy came to a halt behind Sora and they all looked at each other, then looked around.
"So where are they?" Goofy asked, making note of the absence.
"Probably the edge of town."
"Let's go!" Donald cried impatiently. "We can find them later."
The three all reversed direction and ran back towards the construction zone on the edge of town. It soon came in sight. They ran to the edge of the rubble and looked down into the lower area to see Heartless, Nobodies, and three young fighters around his age holding their own against them. One of the boys was obviously a better fighter than his companions, and the Nobodies were focused on attacking him only for some unknown reason.
"Let's help!" Sora said as he leapt down to fight, followed by Donald and Goofy.
Danny noticed a sudden change in the fight, and then figured out that it had been caused by three newcomers. Immediately noticing that they were helping and not attacking him, Danny dismissed it from his main attention, which were the not-Heartless other enemies. They were only attacking him for some reason, and they were stronger than the Heartless. Normally that wouldn't have been a big problem, but with them all attacking simultaneously and with the Heartless attacking as well, he had his hands full. And now there were strangers here, so Danny couldn't transform and get better access to his ghost powers, which he'd been on the edge of doing.
Somewhere that was not the forefront of his mind, Danny noticed that the human fighter--his two companions were a dog and a duck--had a weapon vaguely similar to his own, though markedly different in appearance.
Two of the other enemies split off to attack him, but the other four remained focused on Danny. Given the sudden opening of reduced numbers, Danny lunged at one of them and hit it solidly in the head, defeating it. It broke up into jagged wisps and disappeared.
Now with a better advantage, Danny attacked the other three in turn, fending off Heartless in the process, and defeated them one by one.
Sora glanced around, given a free moment to do so after defeating the second Nobody that had attacked him, and saw that Goofy, Donald, the dark skinned boy and the girl were finishing off the Heartless. The other boy was fighting one last Nobody, having defeated the other three that hadn't left to attack Sora.
The last Nobody fell to simultaneous attacks from Sora and Danny, and Danny's eyes widened in surprise to see Sora on the other side at the disappearing Nobody. The other four defeated the last few Heartless a moment later.
"Hey, are you...Danny, Sam, and Tucker?" Sora said, breaking the post-battle silence.
"Yeah. I'm Danny."
"Sam."
"Tucker."
"Who are you?" Danny asked.
"I'm Sora, and this is Donald and Goofy. We've been looking for you."
"Looking for us?" Sam spoke. "Why?"
"You were in Traverse Town right? You were sent there after the Heartless got your world?"
"Yeah," Tucker said as Danny nodded. "How do you know that?"
"Let's get back to Leon and the others. We can explain fully when we're there."
"Leon? So you know him? And what about Cid and Yuffie?"
"They should be there, too. They're the Restoration Committee after all. There are others, like Merlin and Aeris, but let's get back."
No longer necessary, the weapons disappeared from their respective owners back to whence they had come because the fighting and danger were gone for the time.
Sora, Donald, and Goofy led Danny, Sam, and Tucker back to Headquarters.
Upon Sora's return, introductions began.
"Hey, Sora, you're back! Oh, is that them?"
"Yeah, Yuffie. This is Danny, Sam, and Tucker." Sora pointed to the owner of each name as he said it. "This is Yuffie," he said, talking now to the newcomer trio. "And that's Leon and Yuffie over there, and Cid is sitting there. Merlin isn't here right now, so he's probably at his own house."
Tucker immediately focused on Cid when Sora introduced him and the rough-looking man waved in acknowledgment. Well, not so much on Cid himself and more on where he was sitting. There were computers there.
Tucker suddenly shot to Cid's side, nearly overbearing in his excitement at seeing familiar technology. Cid, leaning out of his chair, nearly fell out of it in surprise, and made a rude exclamation out of reflex. Tucker didn't notice.
"That's Tron," Sora said belatedly.
Sam sighed and Danny face-palmed.
Yeah, so I've been attacked by writer's block again. I've outlined this story all the way up through chapter 12, but now I'm stuck midway through 13. The unlucky number. Hopefully it will go away by the time I get to that point writing out the story fully.
Please review! I'll post faster. Bonus, there's a lull in my homework load this weekend, and I forgot (and therefore missed the opportunity) to plan on going home this weekend. So I might even write chapter 7 out as a kind of 2-for-1.