Tempest
A quiet young woman (er, usually quiet!) from a world that recently fell to darkness. She's another Keyblade Bearer. The resurrected Organization XIII has taken an interest in her, at least partly for her Keyblade.
Luke
Tempest's brother, a brash young man who also wields a Keyblade. He's gotten involved in something secretive, but getting tired of keeping quiet about it. The resurrected Organization XIII is interested in him for the same reasons as Tempest, but apparently he's harder to get to.
Resurrected Organization XIII
A group of Nobodies trying to create an artificial Kingdom Hearts, in hopes that it'll restore their lost hearts. They were all destroyed some time ago, but somehow all came back recently - with the exception of Xemnas. What in the world is going on here...?
Assault Armor
Inspired by the likes of Guard Armor and Trinity Armor, Maleficent created this Heartless to attack Radiant Garden. Don't let the shining shield fool you - it's no paladin, and it plays dirty.
The left leg contains a rocket booster that doubles as a flamethrower, and the right contains a rapid-fire energy blaster. Unlike its inspirations, its parts can't operate independently, and must be connected to the body at all times by magical tethers.
Tempest, Sora, and Kairi made quick work of it, though something strange happened when it was defeated.
Nox's Report 2
Before I explain our mistake, I must first explain our original intentions - which, in turn, means I must explain the nature of the subject we studied.
If you are not familiar with the elements of light and darkness, and the powers contained therein, take a moment to read up on that before continuing. Today I would recommend Flux and Balance: Generating Power from Clashing Elements, by Lucius Nagil et al, but I hope that these reports are not needed for a very long time, in which case superior resources will surely have been created.
A well known legend is that of the χ-blade: the original Keyblade, broken eons since into seven pieces of light and thirteen pieces of darkness, and if seven lights clash with thirteen darknesses, the χ-blade will be reforged. And possibly the worlds will be destroyed. The legends are unclear on this point.
Less known is that if fewer lights and darknesses clash, lesser but still scientifically valuable effects occur.
For the past fifteen years, this team has been clashing single lights with single darknesses under various conditions, and the results have been both fascinating and deeply troublesome.
In most cases, a clash of this kind leaves a deposit of flux which can be harvested for its usual uses. As most sapient beings can harvest and use small amounts of flux subconsciously (Galdus et al, 798), it is believed that this phenomenon is responsible for the proliferation of combat arenas.
However, some areas in the fabric of reality have unusual properties, and will produce extreme results. As far as we have been able to determine, these areas only react to clashes between light and dark, and not to any other stimulus. Accordingly, they have become known as "Points of Shadow".
A/N: I said this interlude would be up on Friday. Today is Saturday. The reason? ... Well, uh, I'm scatterbrained and forgot to push the "publish" button all day yesterday. Oops! Anyway, Chapter 6 is in progress and should be up before the end of days.
Edit: Also, seriously FFN, I can't name it "Chapter 5.5"? Great. Love it. Good... anti-spam or whatever. Definitely solves more problems than it causes and not the other way around.