A/N: 6.6.09: Aurora/Maleficent's world has gotten a name as it's going to be in Birth By Sleep, so I'm going to add the name! :D Please note that, despite the fact this story is finished, I still love getting and replying to reviewsss. ;3

Old note: I'm still pleasantly surprised that this story is getting to be rather well liked. At any rate, let's make a disclaimer in this chapter for the sake of wasting space! Axel, take it away.

Axel: Everything in this fanfic belongs to Square and Disney. Lollipop only owns Keira, Quince, any of the other characters you don't recognize and the idea of the new type of stupid nobodies in this chapter. Got it memorized?

Cid and the King spent two hours after the events in the waterway updating the existing Gummi Ships and creating another. Because Axel and Naminé didn't know the exact area of where they wanted to go, it was decided that portals probably wouldn't be the safest thing to use; aside from that, the exposure to the darkness was rather dangerous. On a medium-sized ship that Cid had built, Aerith, Yuffie, Cid, and Leon returned to the Radiant Garden - just in case anything happened there. Sora, Kairi, Naminé, and Roxas took the Highwind. The King, Donald, Goofy, and Riku took the King's ship. Out of the kindness in his heart, Riku elected to go with Mickey so Highwind wouldn't be too crowded, despite the fact that he had actually named Highwind. Tifa, Cloud, Keira, and Axel took the final ship.

Although they were taking different ships, they were all going to the same world, mostly because it was both Maleficent and a Princess of Heart's home. "I would be completely surprised if that stupid hag didn't already capture Aurora," remarked Riku over the transmission as he took over artillery for Goofy so that the latter could get some rest.

"I'd laugh," stated Sora and Axel. Sora was piloting Highwind while Roxas took care of the artillery, leaving Naminé and Kairi to sit back and relax. Tifa was also artillery on her ship while Cloud watched the road and Keira slept in the back, having mumbled something about how much she hated flying.

King Mickey was not quite as amused by their conversation. "We've gotta try to be serious, fellas. If anything, this world should be the worst of them all."

Sora hung his head a little, though everyone else in his ship quickly reminded him that he had no time for such guilty gestures as pilot. "Right, sorry, your Majesty."

"Your Majesty," Tifa spoke kindly, "Are you sure it was such a good idea for all of us to be together? After all, none of us know how to fly a Gummi ship."

"What're you saying? I'm piloting the ship, aren't I?" exclaimed Axel angrily. "It's not like we've crashed or anything."

Tifa shook her head, mumbling, "Yet." Evidently, she was no quiet enough, for Axel began a yelling match with her.

Cloud rubbed his temples. "Stop," He spoke sharply, making the two of them quickly shut up. "I'm getting a headache."

"We'd gladly take Axel on our ship." Roxas did not keep the hopefulness out of his voice.

Tifa sighed. "Yes, please, take him!"

"I wonder if I can still control Assassins?" mused Axel. "If only we weren't on a ship."

"You're human," pointed out Cloud, to which Axel had to agree it was probably unlikely.

"Say, Roxas, if Axel came onto the ship, who would you get rid of?" They heard Naminé asked with forced sweetness.

Roxas wasted no time in replying, "Sora, of course."

"What was that?"

"Kairi and Naminé are mellow - and not clumsy." His words set off an argument between himself and the Keyblade Master. All three persons in Axel's ship winced until the transmission was blissfully turned off.

With one hand, Keira held her head while the other rested on the transmission's dial. "And I thought that men always said girls were annoying," she grumbled, sitting between Cloud and Tifa's seats on the floor.

"Well, they are. Got it memorized?"

"Shut up, Axel," groaned Keira.

Since the spat with Tifa, Axel seemed to be looking for a fight. "Oh, and I suppose that you're going to make me?"

"I'll shove my keyblade up your... nose and then see how you feel." The hesitance between her words made it quite apparent that nose was not her original choice of words, and Axel decided not to dwell on how she would have done this or how painful it would be. Instead, he focused on steering away from meteors, Heartless ships, and Nobody ships, which everyone was grateful for.

Tifa ruffled Keira's hair, an appreciative smile on her face. "Feeling better?"

Keira shrugged. "Yeah, I s'pose so," she answered although it was hardly the truth. All she could do was think about Quince and the mural, and it was not making her feel any good. "How long until we get to... Wherever we're going?"

"A few minutes," answered Cloud.

"In other words, go put on a seat belt before Axel crashes us into the world," translated Tifa with a grin as said man glared at her.

XxX

Sora rubbed his cheek and blushed for what had to be the seventh time in two hours. "Sora, why don't you just ask her to be your girlfriend already?" muttered Roxas, leaning his head toward his other.

"Me? Why don't you try to speed things up with Naminé?" He retaliated, annoyed, causing Roxas' cheeks to turn pink.

He quickly shot back, "Well, at least I don't rub at my cheek every five minutes and then cast a look at Kairi."

"That's not as bad as you looking back at Naminé every five seconds," chirped Sora.

"You're right, it's worse because you're supposed to be piloting this thing!" growled Roxas. Realizing his defeat, Sora fell silent.

"We'll be landing in... the Enchanted Domain in a few minutes, guys," announced Sora to the others. (A/n: That name is the official name.)

XxX

"Axel, you land first." King Mickey spoke over the transmission, which had been turned back on.

Keira groaned. "Must we die already?"

Axel sent a quick glare at her. "Shut your trap," he replied, playing with a few levers and slowly steering the ship downward. To the surprise of everyone, he successfully landed the ship.

"We'll go next, Your Majesty," offered Sora as Highwind landed next, followed by Mickey. The world that they had landed in was... uncheerful, to put it bluntly. Hordes of Heartless were running around, with a Dusk here and there, and many nearby buildings were in ruins.

Keira slashed at a Shadow. "...Oh, geez."

"Gawrsh, Your Majesty, how're we supposed to find the Princess?" asked Goofy with a nervous glance at their surroundings.

"Hello?" The lush voice of a young woman called from the forest to their right. There was the sound of branches knocking into one another as a young woman entered the area, pulling her golden hair free of vegetation. She dusted off her blue dress and righted the circlet atop her head. (A/n: I hate Aurora's pink dress. D:)

Donald's response was much too loud. "Wak! Aurora!" The Heartless and Nobodies in the area froze as if they understood the name and quickly looked to the beautiful princess.

"Oh, no," mumbled Aurora as she slowly began to back away.

"Don't worry, we'll help you!" reassured Sora as he and the other wielders rushed forward to take out the Heartless and Nobodies. He guarded against a Neoshadow's angry claws before knocking it into a group of Shadows while, beside him, Kairi casted a fira spell on a group of Shadows that were much too close to Aurora.

Several assassins surrounded Axel, resulting in his robust laughter. "Hey, there, buddies. Remember me?" With his chakrams in hand, he also joined in the enjoyment of destroying the enemy as well as getting sweet revenge. Before Aurora totally comprehended her surroundings, the entire group had begun to fight the enemy. She felt a rush of relief at this until a soldier stopped before her, and she screamed, though it was cut short as a sword destroyed it. She slowly gazed up at her savior, finding a blond man standing above her.

A smile touched Aurora's features at his appearance. "Philip!" She cried, throwing her arms around her husband. "I was afraid that the Heartless got you."

Philip wrapped his arms around her, reassuring her under his breath. "It's alright." Philip could sense the presence of something behind him, knew he could not move fast enough to defend himself, and settled for acting as Aurora's human shield. The sound of metal singing instead of his heart being ripped from his chest forced him to release his wife and check out what had happened.

Keira was swinging Shadow Heart at the Large Body's chest though, instead of weakening it, she was only pissing it off. "Why won't you die? Stupid Heartless," she huffed, swinging at its chest again and being knocked backwards from the recoil. Realization dawned upon her as she rolled behind the Heartless and shoved Shadow Heart into its back. A pink heart hovered into the sky, the only reminder that she had fought anything at all. "Ha! That wasn't so bad."

"You saved us," said Aurora in a breathless voice as Keira turned toward them. "Thank you."

Keira forced her body into a nervous bow, "Sure, anytime."

Once the area was cleared of the enemy, Sora joined them. "Princess Aurora, how have you escaped the Nobodies, Heartless, and Maleficent...?"

"Luck, I suppose. I must be very lucky since I keep getting into sticky situations and walking away unscathed," she added in a thoughtful manner. "It's very nice to see you again, Sora, Donald, Goofy, Your Majesty." Aurora smiled as Kairi shyly stopped beside Sora. "And you're the other princess, Kairi, I remember you. It's very nice to see you again." Kairi curtsied to her fellow princess.

"Then that just leaves us," Axel said as he, Riku, Cloud, Tifa, Naminé, and Roxas joined the group. "The name's Axel, got it memorized?"

Tifa rolled her eyes. "He can't even show respect to royalty. Then again, he didn't do much for Kairi and Keira, anyway," she sighed before adding, a kinder voice, Tifa." The others all introduced themselves with bows.

When Keira introduced herself by name only, the King chuckled. "That is Princess Keira, at least." She frowned, her cheeks tingeing with pink.

Aurora looked around with a bewildered expression, "Another princess? I thought something might be going on. Please, explain." It did not take very long for the King to explain their current situation and what he knew about Keira being a princess.

"That's why those things, the Heartless, are running amok; they're after my Aurora again," realized Prince Philip.

King Mickey nodded. "I'm afraid so. We've gotta find the keyhole of this world and seal it. Though, I'm not sure that it'll keep Maleficent at bay." The Prince could hear the things that Mickey wasn't saying: 'We can't stop her from kidnapping Aurora again.'

Philip's hand rested on the hilt of his sword. "I won't have it. That evil witch won't be taking my wife away from me again."

"Don't get us wrong, we'll do all that we can," Tifa attempted to reassure him. "But we've been having enough trouble keeping our own princesses safe."

"Maleficent has an unlimited amount of Heartless and Nobodies at her disposal, so it's going to be tough to stop her from achieving her goals," added Riku honestly, as always; out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Keira rolling her eyes.

Sora groaned as his thoughts drifted to Hook, Oogie Boogie, Jafar, Ursula, Hades and Pete. "I just hope that she hasn't enlisted help again."

"She's already enlisted Sephiroth; you can't get much worse than that," pointed out Tifa.

Goofy became panicked by the thought of Sephiroth plus Maleficent's past allies all working together with the evil witch. "Gawrsh, if she does have all of them together then we're in big trouble."

Sora waved it off. "We've dealt with them tons of times, so I'm hardly worried, even if it does make things a little harder. It would be pretty annoying, though."

"Not to mention she'd get the princesses faster," added Roxas.

"Welp, let's start with this world, fellas," declared the King. Everyone was silent as they thought about the Enchanted Kingdom which, judging by the looks of it, was little more than miles and miles of forest.

Axel voiced the same thought. "We don't even know where we should begin to look."

"It could be in the castle," mumbled Aurora to herself before repeating, louder, "It may be in my father's castle somewhere."

Sora thought it was as good a place as any. "The keyholes of worlds are usually in important places."

"As long as we have an idea, let's run with it," agreed Riku. "Where is the castle?"

"Continue through this area and then through the forest. It's very large; you might even be able to see it if you were to climb the tallest tree in the forest."

Mickey nodded. "We'll check it out; make sure to hide yourselves well."

The two royalties nodded. "Don't worry about us," responded the prince.

"Oh, but before you go," Aurora broke in. "Your Majesty, have you seen Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather?"

"Welp, as a matter of fact, I have! They're safe, in another world. Don't worry."

"We'll see if we can't send you over to them when we're done here," offered Naminé kindly.

Aurora smiled. "Thank you very much. Oh, be careful!"

XxX

"This forest is getting on my nerves." Keira grumbled as she attempted to pull one of the many twigs out of her hair. Admittedly, she had never been the biggest fan of hiking, and all of the tripping over roots and scratches from branches was not making her like it any better.

Naminé heaved a sigh as her dress got caught by a branch, not for the first time. "Mine, too." Roxas slashed the branch, freeing her, and she pulled what was left over out of her dress.

"If I were to burn it down, things would be a lot easier..." Axel began as he summoned his Chakrams.

Several of the others immediately yelled at him. "Axel!"

"I was just making a suggestion," he mumbled with mock-hurt.

Keira paused, finally having enough of their hike. "I think we should take a break. One, so we can rest. And two, so we can make sure we're going the right way." The group exchanged glances, and no one was eager to disagree, all ready to take a rest.

"Phew," breathed Kairi, sliding against a tree and sitting on the forest floor.

Sora pounded his chest. "I'll check for the castle." He jumped on the trunk of the tree Kairi was sitting against, hugging it to the best of his ability and slowly, but surely, and began to climb; Donald and Goofy recalled him doing about the same back in Mulan's world during their previous adventure, so he was pretty good. The tree's height gave him hope that he would find the castle with ease.

When he reached the top, he climbed onto the topmost, and most unstable, branch. He focused his eyes straight ahead, relieved to see they were nearly to the castle. "Good thing." He made to start his descent but froze when he heard a crack. "...Crap." The branch beneath him finally gave way and, yelling, he hurled downward until he hit a steadier branch a few feet above the ground.

Kairi winced as her Sora's body made an audible thud on the very sturdy branch. "How far is it, Sora?" asked Riku with a light snicker.

"Just ahead," groaned Sora as he pushed himself upright and landed on the forest floor.

Riku stood. "Let's get going," he suggested and, with sighs, everyone rose and continued to walk.

Kairi giggled as she held out her hand. "You okay?"

"Yeah," answered Sora as he took her hand into his own and stood. It took much willpower on his part not to add 'now I am' after she smiled. As they set off after the others, neither noticed that they were being closely stalked by a raven.

XxX

"Ah, I see," murmured Maleficent, standing in a darker part of the forest with Diablo resting on her arm, "So the fools are heading toward the keyhole, hm? And they were with Aurora before that, were they?" Diablo cawed, fluffing up a bit, with pride that he had brought back helpful information. She sighed, hand idly stroking the raven's glossy black feathers, as she considered how to properly execute her plan.

"The other two do not matter to me at the moment. Those fools (A/N: Meaning her goons that were in Sleeping Beauty) have already been sent with Heartless to stop Sora and his friends for a time. After all, capturing Aurora has never been a tough job in the past," she added with a light cackle. "Lead the way, my pet."

With a croak, Diablo departed from his mistress and flew through the forest.

XxX

"How far away is 'just ahead', Sora?" Kairi finally asked following another ten minutes of walking.

Sora scratched the back of his head. "The castle didn't look that far," he mumbled. "We should be there soon."

Keira groaned, "We're going to be here a while," she complained before stopping in her tracks and looking around. "Did anyone else hear that?"

"The stamp of feet? Yeah, I heard it," replied Roxas as everyone else stopped. "I thought it was just us, though."

"I think someone - no, some people are being sent to stop us." King Mickey squinted his beady black eyes at the trees before them. The marching was getting steadily closer; they would be meeting the other group at any moment.

"Bring 'em on!" quacked Donald, staff held at the ready as the shadows of the strangers fell before them. Before they even met their opposition, however, it was obvious that there was little to worry about. The group of strangers emerged from the bushes, yelling at each other and giggling, and they truly did not look like much. They were all very short, drunk-looking pigs dressed in peasant clothes, and, though they were armed with swords, bows and other sharp objects, they did not look intelligent enough to use them.

"This is what she sends to attack us?" asked Axel, close to tears as he laughed. "The shadows even look stronger than these idiots!"

"Hey! Don't doubt us!" One of the goons, who was short with a large nose, piped up.

Encouraged by his friend, another shouted, "Yeah! We've got back up!"

Axel was still grinning. "Oh, I'm shaking in my cloak."

"You should be!" The first goon squealed as a stampede of hooves sounded behind him.

"More of you on... horses?" Roxas laughed, "That sounds like a suicide if I've ever heard one." As the black horses came into view, it became quite evident that they would have a run for their money. Instead of more stupid-looking pigs, the figures riding the horses were grotesque-looking 'soldiers' with the Nobody symbol etched on their chests. In addition to these, there were Heartless Knights on black Heartless horses as well as Assault Riders.

The sound of metal on metal could barely be heard over the hooves ad Cloud unsheathed his sword. "The Heartless and Nobody types continue to increase."

One of the goons cackled, drawing strength from the fact that Sora and the others were, at the very least, a little nervous. "Yeah, you better be scared! Maleficent is letting us control Heartless and Nobodies now, too!"

"Why any Nobody would ever listen to one of these idiots, I will never know," murmured Axel as his chakrams appeared in a flash of fire. "But you chumps are no match against us. Got it?"

"Attack!" ordered the goons in perfect unison as they launched themselves forward. At the same time, the Nobodies and Heartless surged forward. Before they knew it, a huge wave of enemies was heading towards them.

XxX

Philip and Aurora had decided to move away from where they had been earlier and toward the cottage where Aurora grew up as Briar Rose. A blue bird perched itself on her finger and many other animals had gathered around the two of them. Aurora was singing beautifully, her lush voice leading all of the animals straight to her as always. Despite her quiet voice, all the animals of the forest seemed able to hear her as if she were singing at the top of her lungs.

Philip smiled at his beautiful wife as she stroked the bird's glossy blue feathers. Beside him stood his trusty steed, Samson, who, like himself, had decided to wind down a bit. The three of them felt very confident in Sora and his friends and had no fear about Maleficent. For the time being, at least, though this was a mistake in itself. Diablo landed swiftly in the tree above Philip. Apart from Aurora's singing, there was an eerie silence in the forest.

A few moments after Diable landed, green flames appeared near Aurora, making all of the animals flee quite quickly. "You simpletons thought that you could escape me? Fools!" cackled Maleficent, pointing her staff at the two. The forest, which had been quiet just a moment ago, now filled with the sound of laughter and a terrified neigh as a bright light flooded the area.

A/N: I keep realizing that I forget to add Axel, and when I remember it's usually too late. Luckily that isn't the case this time! Anyway, I simply had to bring us to the world of Sleeping Beauty. Mind you, my second favorite Disney princess was always Aurora.

Roxas: I actually kind of like Ariel...

Naminé: That doesn't have anything to do with what she's wearing, does it, Roxas?

Roxas: -swallows hard- Of course not, Naminé!

Axel: These two will be the first to fall in the battle.

See you next chapter, and if you review then you can own Axel.

Axel: ...What?