A/N: I'm writing this over a 3-day vacation to Milwaukee... where I have to sit in a hotel room ALL DAY and do NOTHING while my parents go to DOCTOR'S CONFERENCES! I'm having a hard time thinking of battles and stuff to put in, but I will try to make this more action/adventurey. I'll probably warp it in the middle of the chapter or so... and it will most certainly take longer than my Milwaukee vacation... argh... Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, but I sure want to... I probably wouldn't have done such a good job on it, though...

Chapter 7. Evidence.

"Well he certainly was no help..." Herzophia stated gloomily. She looked around hopelessly at the abnormally large forest. "How are we supposed to find evidence in this humongous place?"

Sora shrugged. "Well, we'd better get started!" He grinned, and began to walk past the large tree stump.

Almost instantly, two of the red fireball-shooting Heartless appeared, along with about 5 shadows and a very round, very fat Heartless with a tiny head. The shadows spread out and surrounded Sora, save one, who went after Donald and Goofy, along with the red ones. Herzophia, being left with the fat Heartless, charged at her target, Heartblade held in both hands. She brought her sword above her head and swung down with all of her might at her enemy's over-large belly.

It was like hitting a rock. A wave of pain shivered up her arm, making it vibrate. "Ah!" She sucked air in between her teeth, making a hissing noise, and shook her arm vigorously. "That smarts..." she said, still shaking her pain-filled arm. So, she couldn't attack them head-on... the attack hadn't even phazed the large Heartless, which was now beating its stomach, a strange blue aura emanating from it. Herzophia watched dumbly as it hit itself once especially hard, and charged her. She attempted to dodge-roll out of its path, but it just followed her every move. She stood up from her last roll and prepared to sprint away from the oncoming Heartless, but she had stopped moving for too long. Its large belly slammed into her back, and she hurtled into the trunk of an oversized tree, knocking all the air from her lungs.

Sora spun around towards the last shadow and swung his sword in a slow horizontal arc, hitting and destroying his enemy. He looked around to check on the others, and saw a blur of silver and black slam into the trunk of a tree nearby.

Herzophia sat up, holding her stomach and gasping for breath. Remembering she was in the middle of a fight, she turned around to face the Heartless again, and stood up at the same time, sword in one hand, the other still clutching her stomach. She very nearly fell over again when she spooted Sora, who was repeatedly hitting the large-belly Heartless's belly, each time jumping back and shaking out his hand. "Sora! It doesn't work like that!" She half-laughed. She walked over near Sora, who had quit striking the Heartless and was now leaning on his sword, wiping the sweat from his forehead. The Heartless just stood there, scratching its head stupidly. Donald and Goofy had just finished destroying the elusive red fire-casters, and were jogging over to the others.

"Have you tried to hit it from the back?" Asked Goofy, having seen Herzophia and Sora's vain attempts to hurt it from the front.

Sora blinked. "Well... no, we haven-" he was cut off at the large-belly jumped into the air and stomped down, senting out a shockwave that scattered the group.

"Guess we can try now!" Quacked Donald, who ran over to the back of the Heartless and casted a fireball at it, knocking it a good 3 inches forward. The Heartless turned around, beating its stomach again, the blue aura appearing. Donald, having no clue what it was doing, was soon flying backwards, and into a small circle of gigantic cattails and grass.

Goofy charged at the back of the Heartless, shield held in front of him and a hand over his eyes.  Sora ran after him, Keyblade raised, Herzophia not far behind. The three of them began mercilessly attacking it while Donald recovered. The duck stood up, shook his head, and shot another fireball at his enemy, which then disappeared.

"Well, that was fun," said Sora, grinning broadly and leaning on his Keyblade again.

"Yeah... right." Said Herzophia, who was still in pain from being hurled into a tree.

Sora walked into Donald's cirlce of grass. "Don't be so down, Zophi, look!" He pointed to a small pink checkered box. "At least we found something." He walked over to the corner of the grass circle and lifted up the box. Peering inside, he took out a small black stick-thing. "Huh..." he said, "what's this?" The other three looked at it.

"Evidence?" Suggested Goofy.

"Yeah, it could be, but what IS it?" Asked Donald, repeating Sora's question.

Herzophia walked over to where Sora was and snatched the thing from his hand. She turned it over in her fingers. She recognized it from somewhere... "It's an antenna." She said, remembering. She handed it back to Sora, who replaced it in its box. "From a Heartless."

"So THAT'S where I recognized it from..." Sora said, also remembering now.

"Gawrsh... I wonder what these're for?" Said Goofy, looking at a couple of giant mushrooms. Had he heard anything they just said...? But he did have a point... they were arranged rather strangely... like stairs, sort of. "Hey, ya think we can climb these?" He asked, grabbing the edge of one and struggling onto it. He jumped onto the next one, nearly losing his balance and falling off.

The others watched him climb the mushrooms, then jump onto a lily-pad tree thing. Herzophia raised her eyebrows, surprised.

"Well..." Said Sora, scratching the back of his head, "it works, I guess..."

Goofy looked at a nearby lilypad-tree. "Huh?" He said. "It's another pink box!" He scrambled up onto the lilypad-tree and picked it up. "Hey, guys! Lookit what I found!" he hopped down from the lilypad-tree, which wasn't that big of a drop, and handed the box to Sora, who opened it and looked inside.

"Uh..." he took out another black things, but his time is was bigger, and had an ovalish shape to it. "It's a footprint..." he said, perplexed. He looked at the others confusedly, who shrugged. He shrugged back and dropped the footprint back into its box. "well, only two more to go!" He grinned.

"Hey, Goofy!" Said Donald, "did you see anything else up there?" He gazed up at the lilypad-tree.

"Uh-huh, there was a door, to another room."

"Do you think there will be more evidence in there?" Asked Herzophia, hopes high now that they had quickly found half the evidence they needed. 'This may not be so hard after all...'

"Let's go look!" Sora started to climb the mushrooms, not bothering to wait for the others. Herzophia jumped up and grabbed onto an oversized fungus, scrambling to stay on. She quickly hopped onto the next one, then onto a lilypad-tree, where Sora stood waiting for the group, and then helped Sora lift Donald up there, who was too short to get up himself.

Herzophia pointed to the tree trunk, which had a large hole on the side that was facing their lilypad-tree. "Goofy was right, there IS a doorway up here!"

Sora nodded. "Yeah, good eyes, Goofy!" He said, giving Goofy a pat on the back.

"Gawrsh, it was nothin'!" Goofy smiled.

Herzophia walked over to the opening in the tree, and began to walk through. She soon found herself walking into midair, and flailed her arms to stay upright. It didn't work. "AAAAGH!" She screamed, and began to fall.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy truned towards the tree. Sora ran over to the opening and tried to help Herzophia, but he tripped, knocking her through as he fell.

Donald rushed over, looking for the two teenagers who had "vanished." Goofy went as fast as he could, failing to slow down in time, and slamming into Donald, sending the duck and himself hurtling down towards what looked like a large stove – where Herzophia and Sora were now sitting, rubbing their pain-filled heads.

BOOM

Donald and Goofy crashed into the brick. If it were possible to go swirly-eyed, Donald would be doing just that, as Goofy had landed right on top of the unfortunate mage. "Gawrsh, sorry Donald!" Goofy apologized, standing up.

Donald shook his head, clearing it. He staggered up from the ground. "Ow..." he looked down at a now slightly flattened pink checkered box.

"Whoa, another piece of evidence!" Sora leaned over and picked up the box, then shakily stood up from his laying down position. He opened the box and took out a piece of scratched-up wood. "I wonder what this is..." he trailed off, continuing to study the wood.

"Looks like claw marks ta me!" Goofy said, looking at the mangled chunk of wood and scratching the back of his head.

"I bet that's it." Herzophia agreed, and stood up. "Can we just get the last piece of evidence and get this over with?" She rubbed the back of her head, as if that would get rid of the pain. "I don't know about you, but I think something about this room is off..." She peered around the strange room nervously. She was right about the room – there was something off about it. But, then again, there was something off about the entire world they were in.

"Well, that was fast! Only one more to go in – what – fifteen minutes?" Sora said, grinning like a madman. "Are we good or what?" He plopped the wood back into the box and jumped down from the stove. Herzophia followed behind, landing just barely on her feet, Donald after her, using his wings in an unsuccessful attempt to slow his fall. Goofy came last, jumping poorly and landing flat on his bum. Goofy stood up and brushed himself off, seemingly unaffected by the fall, which amazed and confused his friends.

"You are strange, Goofy." Herzophia said, shaking her head and staring at the knight. She then noticed that Sora had begun to walk towards an entrance she had seen somewhere before... "Hey, this is the room with the doorknob!" She said, and, sure enough, there was the doorknob, snoring away.

"Well whaddya know?" Sora said, "isn't that weird?" Sora started again towards the entrance – it was the entrance to the courtyard.

Herzophia, noticing that Sora had moved again, quickly followed after him, motioning to Donald and Goofy for them to follow too. The four walked into the Queen's courtyard, and soon were spoken to by the Queen of Hearts. "Well, have you found all of your proof?" She said, glaring down her too-small nose at them.

"Uh, not quite yet," Sora said, remembering that the Cheshire Cat had said there were four pieces of evidence. "Just a little bit longer, and we'll be done."

The Queen snorted, and looked away from them. "You'd better hurry up. My patience is running out." She looked over at the cage Alice was in with an evil glint in her eye. She really HAD wanted to behead the nuisance...

Herzophia, noticing the Queen's look at Alice, whispered to Sora, "come on, let's go." The spike-haired boy nodded. Herzophia lead the way into the forest.

"Well," Sora said, looking around and grinning, "looks like this is our second run... let's hope it's our last."

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Ah, geeze, sorry it took so long, you guys! Damn writer's block! Grrr! Sure, I'm following the game, but for crying out loud, this is hard to think of! *bangs head on keyboard* Well, I'll try to get the next chapter out soon... I just hope I don't get caught up in .hack//INFECTION again... that is another reason it took so long, other than writer's block... stupid addictive games! Must... not... play...