Sora played around with the universal map. So many worlds, so little time. Then there were others that he would never visit, and likely not many people would ever visit. He checked in some of the archives, and noticed a path going through space that didn't appear to go anywhere.

"That's . . . strange," he said, checking the path's history. "Used to be used plenty, but another path was set up to cut a few minutes off of travel time. Only one known world is on this pathway," he read.

An alert went off. Sora shut down the map, and saw that a few dozen heartless ships were headed right at them! "Attention everybody! Buckle up, we've got some enemy ships headed at us! We're going to need some fancy flying!" Sora flipped off the autopilot, and took the controls himself. Fighting with dual keyblades just barely beat the joy of flying the gummi ship autopilot off.

Three large missiles flew straight at the Blazer ship they were in(1). Sora started up the shield, but something else came from their ship and obliterated the missiles. The keyblade master looked over to see Riku working some of the weapons. Sora smirked, knowing that while Riku couldn't steer very well, he was a genius with the lasers.

Sora went sideways, sending small blasts at the heartless ships. Each destroyed ship released gummi blocks, which were picked up by the magnet on the bottom of the ship. Suddenly, a sonic wave hit the ship. Ten huge ships surrounded them. "Too many of these things. Cid put too much stuff for comfort on this thing, not enough weapons or defensive systems." He hit the intercom button. "Hold onto your seats everybody, cause I'm gonna send a bunch of power to the engines." He re-routed the power grid, sending triple power to the engines, and the only negative effect was the lights dimming a bit.

Out of nowhere, the gummi blasted forward, away from the heartless ships, and down the path that Sora had spotted on the map earlier. The newer path really was unnecessary, as it was mere minutes before they spotted a world. "Attention passengers, we are now approaching a world that I do not know the name of. Please prepare for departure, and I hope you've had a wonderful time on Keybearer Airlines," he said over the intercom.

---

"Well, I must say, I have been to many worlds, but this by far had got to be the strangest of them all," Aqua said. "Really, this transformation is even stranger than the one for the North Pole. I mean, cars?"

It was fairly strange. Sora was a black racecar, with a gold hood, Kairi was a red XB, Riku was a slick silver Toyota, Xion was an all black convertible, Oro was a bright green taxi, enjoying every minute of it, Jessie was a bright red beat-up minivan, Terra was a brown pick-up, Ven was a police car, and Aqua was a bright blue Beetle.

They had been on the world for an hour at least already, but they had spent most of that time getting used to their new forms. As Sora was still trying to stay going straight, Xion was driving circles around him, literally. "Care for some driving lessons?"

"Just you wait, cause soon I'll be driving top speed down the highway," Sora said. "Jeez, why is the road so bumpy out here? I mean, I know this is the middle of nowhere, but c'mon, this isn't a few potholes. It feels like somebody couldn't have done worse if they'd tried."

At that moment, out of the dusty desert came a bright blue Porsche. "Hello! Are you here on Spring Break?" she asked cheerfully. "We don't get many visitors in Radiator Springs."

Terra blinked. "It's September, no, October, actually. Y'know, autumn. We're actually looking for somebody. Or something. If either one's here, it's good." He moved his front wheels up and down like he was shrugging.

"Well, maybe for the moment, you could come look at the town? Just having somebody stay in town for more than a few minutes, I think would really boost the confidence of the shopkeepers there."

"Sorry, we're a little bit--" Terra started, but was cut off by Sora.

"We'd be glad to. We can look around there," he said.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm Sally, and you can just follow me to town," she said. As the party of nine drove behind her, Terra spoke to Sora.

"We can't spend out time camping out somewhere! The apprentice could be wreaking havoc in another world, or he could get his hands on another piece of the Heartstone!"

"What if the heartless chose to show up here? Those heartless ships were there for a reason. We've barely run into any since me and my friends left Destiny Island. Now, out of nowhere, we have to try and escape from some of them. We'll stick around here for a day or two, then we can head straight to another world, which will be just as randomly picked as this one, I might add," Sora pointed out.

Terra sighed. "But we can't get involved in their issues. What about the world order?"

"No offense, but the whole concept of preserving the world order was blasted into a thousand pieces when Xehanort released the heartless into the worlds. Yeah, we can't let people move between worlds, but we can still help out with problems." Sora turned his attention to Sally. "So what's the deal with this road being such a mess?"

"You can blame that on one Lightning McQueen," she said, sounding irritated. "He's this racecar--nothing against racecars--who showed up in town, and trashed the road. Doc Hudson, the judge, sentenced him to repaving the road before he would be able to leave for some big race, the Piston Cup. Needless to say, he didn't get the road done exactly right." She brightened. "Here we are, the one and only, Radiator Springs!"

Had it not been for some of the cars going around, Sora would have sworn Radiator Springs was a ghost town like the ones in the scary stories Riku told when they were little kids.

"It's," Kairi said, unable to find a good word to describe the town. "Cute."

"It'd be even better if their were less idiots getting stuck here, and some people who actually wanted to be here got here," said an old-style car. "Which one are you?"

"Neither, really," Sora said. "We're just looking for something, and we ended up passing through here. You must be Doc Hudson. I'm Sora, and these are my friends, Riku, Kairi, Xion, Oro, Jessie, Terra, Ven, and Aqua." He gestured in some way to each of them as he said their names.

Doc Hudson grunted. "Just try not to tear up the road any more than that Lightning has already. Then again, he'll have to redo it all after his horrible job today." He sighed. "Sally, would you mind leaving us for a moment?" The Porsche drove off in the direction of what appeared to be a giant traffic cone. Hudson's expression grew stern. "I don't know what you're doing in this world. There's nothing here that could be of any danger to the rest of the universe."

Sora wasn't very surprised that Doc Hudson knew about the other worlds. He just seemed like that kind of person--so to speak. "We're not going to make a mess of things. But, why is it that this place is such a ghost town?"

"A few years back, two things took away almost all business here. There was a new highway built, completely bypassing this town for the sake of ten minutes off the trip. Then somebody created a new gummi route, preventing any off-worlders from visiting. Before that, we welcomed people with open arms. This was one of the few places that got frequent traffic from other worlds. But since the new route was made, there's nothin' left here."

This story gave Sora an idea. "How about this. We have a friend in another world who's one of the biggest gummi ship makers in the worlds. I'll tell him about Radiator Springs, and he'll put the data for this world into all future gummis he makes. For now, its too dangerous for people to safely travel between worlds, but hopefully in a few months it'll be safer. I'll do that, and you have to let us stay here for a bit. What do you say?"

Doc Hudson sighed. "Fine. You got a deal."

"HEY, YOU!" shouted what seemed to be a hillbilly tow truck. Doc Hudson quickly drove away as it came up to them. "Mah name's Mater. Like Tuh-Mater, but without the tuh!" he said, spitting the "tuh" thanks to his giant buck teeth. "You should meet my buddy, he's a racin' car too."

Mater drove off, trying to find the race car that could only be Lightning McQueen they had heard so much about. "Okay," Sora said. "That was, strange."

Sally

A blue porsche who lives in Radiator Springs. She tries to get tourists to stay in the town, but it often fails. She has a bit of a crush on the racecar, Lightning McQueen. She first appeared in CARS.

Lightning McQueen

A rookie racecar who got lost while he was headed to the finals of the Piston Cup in California. He thinks of Radiator Springs as "Hillbilly Hell," and that sums up his entire opinion about annything at this point that isn't the big city. He first appeared in CARS.

Doc Hudson

An old Hudson Hornet, the judge in the town of Radiator Springs. He wants McQueen out of the town as fast as possible. He seems to be hiding something, though. He first appeared in CARS.

Mater

A rusty old tow truck that is some sort of hillbilly. He isn't very bright, but he's a friend of almost everybody in the town. He is the world champion in backward driving, thanks to his rearview mirrors. He first appeared in CARS.

Author's Note

(1) The name of the ship is a misnomer, as it is extremely slow. There's a general trend in Gummi ships. The higher the level of comfort, the slower it is, and vice-versa.

I like the movie CARS, it's so funny! I did leave some bits out from the movie, but then again, the worlds in Kingdom Hearts aren't supposed to be exactly like the movies. They didn't do a bad job of that in Kingdom Heart 1, but they failed miserably in that endeavor Kingdom Hearts 2. This world is two chapters, but leads up to a mini-plot curve. At least, that's what I call it. Like, I think of the whole story of Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden in Kingdom Hearts 2 as being a mini-plot curve. Whatever.