Disclaimer: I, the person who is writing under the name of Karin Starsen, am NOT stealing these characters. I am NOT stealing a story line, and I am most defiantly NOT stealing their creative worlds and creations. All of this does NOT belong to me… I am simply using there great creation to write my interpretation of a story. But I will NOT have anyone steal from ME either… thank you.

The only characters that I own are Jembore and his brother Venbar. Penny and Xander. Ask for permission to use them.

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Their training was going well. Jem and Ven taught the girls well. Penny, much to her dislike, was now renamed icy. Her skill with blizzard magic was amazing, and her silver hair just emphasized the name. Kairi had mastered water, seeing as she was around it her whole life. Even though Jem and Ven knew all the spells weel, Jem specialized in lightning and Ven with fire. They were set for just about any elemental foe if they stayed together.

The teens were in the back ally of traverse town. Kairi practiced motions of attack with the water from the back ally sewer. Ven was having Penny destroy some boxes a little ways off. Though quiet, Ven seemed to be very helpful. If he's anything like Jem, he probably is very helpful! Jem hasn't lost his temper with me once! Even after I accidentally soaked him with the water attack instead of hitting the target drawn on the wall… She giggled to herself inside, but now she was concentrating on teaching Jem some skills with a long dagger. She let him use hers, because he didn't have one yet. We'll have to get him one later. He's pretty good! If he got enough practice in as I have in the past, he'll pass me! It's like he was born to fight or something.

"…Kairi?" Jem said, for the third time. She shook her head out of thought and came back to reality. Jem had just cut a huge diagonal slash across the box. It was deep, and perfect. Had he really never used a knife before?

"Is that how I'm supposed to do it?" he asked. She looked him in the eyes, and he seemed to be series. "Urm, yeah. That's great! You're pretty good Jem. Maybe I'll get Penny to teach you how to use a whip." She smiled.

Jem smiled, then pointed over the Penny and Ven's training area. Ven was struggling through the motions. It was obvious he had never even seen a whip before Penny came along. Kairi couldn't help but giggle.

"Looks like Ven's already got his hands full with that one. I'll stick to the dagger for now."

Kairi nodded and was about to teach him something knew when the hair on the back of her neck flew to a straight, stiff, upward position. She shivered.

"What's wrong?" he asked with concern, standing and handing the knife back to Kairi, preparing for anything.

"Someone is watching us," she said quietly. "Can you see anyone behind me?"

"Nothing…" he looked over to Ven and Penny, she seemed to sense it too. "Something strange is going on… maybe we should head inside…"

Kairi nodded. "Hey, Penny. I think we've had enough training for now. We should move on… let's go inside and pack."

Penny turned, and put effort to getting a smile on to her face, trying to act natural. "Good idea, Kairi! Let's hurry!"

The teens practically ran inside to their room. Kairi was last and shut the door behind her. Instantly, the hair on the back of her neck fell back down.

"What was tha-"

But she couldn't finish her sentence, because in the room appeared a heartless. It leapt forward, and Kairi jumped out of the way, hitting it with her blade as it rushed past her.

"Hurry! Run!" she yelled. They were already out the door, and Kairi followed suite. She shut the door behind her, only to find another heartless in front of her. It was about to get her when a lighting bolt killed it. She looked up to so Jem turned around. "Come on!" he yelled. "Let's get out of here!"

He grabbed her hand and started running, and Kairi stayed up with him. He saved me… she thought. But I can't think about that right now, I've got to keep running!

She heard a fire blast from ahead and guessed that Ven was currently at work. Jem headed directly to the first district door, but Kairi turned around to see what was going on. She stopped and caused Jem to stop as well.

"What are you stopping for!" he cried. "We've got to get out of here, they can take care of themselves!"

"Look," Kairi pointed out.

Penny and Ven were currently in a ferocious battle with a gigantic heartless that looked like a suite of armor. But how?... she thought. Sora killed you…

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At the center of the far plain city, there was a beautiful town square. It was massive, large enough to hold half of the population at once. That meant it kept getting bigger. At the center was a fountain, it sprouted silver water that looked like liquid mercury. But it was always clean, and if you drank it, it tasted like sweet nectar. This is where Yuna, Rikku and Paine were.

Rikku and Yuna were playfully chasing eachother on the edge of the fountain, every once in a while flinging out their arms to regain their balance. Paine sat on a seat in the middle of the fountain, dipping her boots in the water. She smiled as she watched them play.

"Don't you two think that we should be, I don't know… working on how to solve this mystery?" Paine asked, breaking the mood.

Yuna, avoiding Rikku by leaping ahead, said, "Yeah, but just a second!"

"Yeah, come on Paine!" Rikku said, her old cheerful self. "We've worked our buts of for everyone else for… well, out whole lives! We're dead, can't we take a little break?"

"No," said Paine. "We had too much fun in our last job to say we need a break."

"Oh! Phooey!" Rikku huffed. She sat heavily on the edge of the fountain, crossing her legs underneath her. "Ruin my fun!"

Yuna sat a little ways from Rikku on the edge, also crossing her legs. "You could lighten up a little Paine… it's not like we've got anything to lose. You ruined our fun!" She smiled jokingly.

"That's what I'm here for," Paine replied, but couldn't hold back a faint smile in response.

"So, what do you think we should do? Where can we start?" Rikku asked, bobbing back and forth in her usual fashion.

"Do we have any leads, or clues?" Paine asked.

Yuna's finger went to her chin in thought. "Well, that was a fiend I had never seen before. It was strange… black, and it didn't seem to have… I don't know…"

"Oh! I know what you mean!" Rikku said, raising her hand enthusiastically. "Almost like… like it sort of wasn't there!"

"Like we were fighting a shadow…" Paine added quietly.

"Right."

"So what is it?"

"Well… that girl said that some sort of shield was around Spira. Since we knew the sorce, or the end of death's journey. All of our worlds were too different, so we couldn't let them know… as far as I understood. So… if the shield were to break, things from other worlds could find their way in," Yuna said. "So maybe that black fiend wasn't from our world."

"Or maybe, it wasn't even a fiend," Paine added.

Rikku's eyes widened. "If it wasn't a fiend, it was a really mean animal!"

"Or shadow… could it be a shadow of a real fiend out there? In a different world. Maybe the shield hasn't broken completely yet, and it can only let shadows through."

"Well, that's the best lead we have so far. But how do we figure out what it is?"

They sat in silence for a while. Rikku looked around, slightly zoning out. She looked at all the people. It was hard to believe that they were all from different worlds. Or they hadn't even heard of Spira!

Then it hit her. She waved her hands excitedly. "I know, I know! We can find people around here who aren't from Spira! Maybe if we describe what we saw to them, they'll know what it is! That way we can find out what world it came from!"

Paine's eyes widened. Yuna and Rikku looked to her. "What?" they asked simultaneously.

"Is it just me, or has dieing made Rikku smarter?"

"You big bully!" Rikku said punching her.

Then the three girls were off into the crowd, a huffy Rikku leading the way.