"Buffy, I think I've found something!" Willow said with that 'AHA!' tone in her voice. She had long since given up on looking through though the books since they didn't seem to appear anywhere. Buffy came over on cue and sat down next to Willow and her laptop.
"I managed to hack into the Initiative's database. It seems the heartless have appeared before. There are quite a few articles here on them." Willow looked at Buffy, giving her an accomplished grin.
"They all have a tattoo of a black heart trimmed in red at least somewhere on their body. But nowhere does it say anything about the strange, mickey-like symbols." Willow said, with a frown as she clicked on one of the links.
"Well, what about the past appearances? What do they do? How are they killed? Where are they from?" Buffy said, putting a hand on her chin.
"They've appeared once before in full force. But they weren't as coordinated as the ones you talk about. They appeared to have attacked at random, and that was the first time they had ever appeared. Their forces were taken down about 25 years ago, by a slayer named Nikki Wood."
"Nikki Wood. Sounds familiar." Buffy said. "So they weren't coordinated, huh? What about now? How recent do the attacks go?"
"It goes back to about three years ago. The Gentlemen were heartless. Wow, guess we kind of took care of those. Nowhere does it mention them working under the influence of someone though. They only have recent files on them, so they apparently aren't of earthly origin. You can kill them by way of normal demon slaying, I guess, since decapitation, stabbing, fire, etcetera all work on them."
"But the Gentlemen were different. I had to kill them with a scream." Buffy added.
"Yeah, but they are a special kind of Heartless. Various Heartless do have to be killed certain ways, but Id say about ninety percent of them can be killed by the good ol' hack and slash method, judging from the articles."
"Goody. Hack and Slash equals a fun time in my book. So nowhere does it say anything about this Ansem guy?" asked Buffy, who was now standing and pacing about the floor.
"I could check again, but so far, no." Willow said.
"Ugh, guys." Xander said, running in the room. "Outside, quickly!"
Without hesitation, Willow and Buffy followed Xander outside. When they got out there, Anya was already there pointing to the sky, and Dawn ran out after them.
"What IS that?" She said, a panic in her voice.
"I don't know." Anya said. "We just got back from the Magic Box's ruins, where we had to see if the Demon Codex was still there, and we just saw this thing in the Sky."
Buffy looked up. There was a huge brightly lit, multi colored streak across the horizon. At the end of the streak was a larger ball of light that looked like it was crashing into the Earth. Within seconds, the light disappeared into Sunnydale Forest and an eruption of trees flew upward. Whatever it was had landed.
"Buffy..." WIllow started to say.
"You say these Heartless things aren't from Earth? Well I say that if that's the case, then they just came from the mothership." Buffy said sternly. "Im going to check it out. You guys stay here and learn all you can about these things."
She quickly ran inside and grabbed her coat, along with a sword. Then she walked down the street and into the night.
* * *
"You call that a landing?!" Donald yelled with his crackly duck voice to Chip and Dale, who were piloting the thing.
"Sorry! It's just, this world is so different. It was hard to find a proper place to land." Chip said.
"Whatever the case, we are stuck here for a while. It could be a few days before we get this thing in the air again. The engine's blown." Dale said, without even moving.
"How do you know that? You haven't even left the cockpit!" Donald said crabbily.
"This is my baby. Trust me, the engines blown." Said Dale, raising his eyebrow.
"Well, we shouldn't waste time here. We really should go look for the keyhole before Ansem reaches it."
Sora said, spinning his keyblade around.
"Garsh, He's right, Donald." Said Goofy.
"Oh alright!" Donald said.
"Let's go!"
They went outside the Gummi Ship. It was dark. The forest seemed to be alive, like it was watching and waiting for its chance to strike them down. Sora shivered. Halloweentown was creepy, but this place was just menacing. They reached the edge of the forest within seconds. It seems they weren't as far in as it seemed. This was more of a suburban area, no businesses in sight, just houses, and a graveyard.
Sora walked in a straight line with Donald and Goofy. He was getting a bad feeling about this place.
The next thing he heard made his heart skip a beat. Footsteps. And not just Donald and Goofy's footsteps. Others. Sora grasped the handle of his blade and closed his eyes, hoping it was just a small Heartless. He turned around, and was followed by a confused Donald and Goofy.
It was only three people. Three human people. Or so they seemed.
"Whoa. I have seen some freaky demons in my day, but a duck and a dog? Is the human with you?" He said.
Donald and Goofy looked at him all confused.
"I'm taking that as a no. So, boys, let's eat."
* * *
Buffy went into the forest. There was an upheaval of trees everywhere, and in the center, the cause of the multi-colored catastrophe from earlier. Buffy walked over to it and looked it over. It was a spaceship of some kind, but made of a strange material. She pushed onto the side and was surprised to see that her hand actually pushed inward. It was so squishy, how did it ever make it through space?
"Geez, All this way in a giant jelly bean?" She said to herself, and looked around for a door. There didn't seem to be one, if there even was one. The whole ship smelled like fruit, the cheap kind of fruit that they put in candy or shampoo or something.
"Strange." She said, looking it over again. She didn't see any sign of life, so she decided to call it a night.
That was, until she heard an explosion in the distance.
