Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and everything else belongs to Walt Disney and Square-Enix.

The OCs and their alter-ego that appear in this story belong to their respective authors. More information about them are found in the "Original Characters' Intro" chapter.


::KINGDOM HEARTS χ Online VR::

-Act 1-

-A New Hero has Risen - Johnny Thunder-


Kingdom Hearts X - Online VR!

Your HD Mission:: Infiltrate the Blackhearts' Dominion's Facility. The New XIII is your enemies. They are a group of perfect nobodies and strange villains grouped together on one dead-set mission to collect hearts. You have 2:00 Time Limit.

GO!

A glass wall on a large glass bridge shattered in million bits, letting in strong winds to blow violently inside. A Keybearer, mounted on a high-speed motor jet made his entrance and with his Keyblade as a gun started firing a rain of energy bullets at a bunch of people who were on the bridge. Gun-wielding soldiers started swarming the bridge to see what was going on to notice the bloodshed happening by the unlikely hero.

"Yeah! That's what I'm talkin' about, baby!" the Keybearer exclaimed, one fist in the air, the other manhandling the motorcycle, "Massive damages! Major killin' !"

He then reached for his helmet and pushed a button on its side. "Hey yo! Blazen! You there, man?"

"Right behind ya, Johnny Boy!" a voice caught his attention. Blazen dropped from a flying airship, the Sun Flier on a rope ladder like a spy on a mission. The ship was dark-gold and tricked out with black-and-white graffiti.

"It's Thunder." Johnny, or Thunder as he preferred to be called, corrected Blazen.

"Like I care!" Blazen grinned at him before he raised one arm up toward his Sun Flier and the airship morphed back to his Keyblade. He then separates them and posed with one Keyblade behind his back (like Sora's Valor Form).

SECURITY HAS BEEN BREACHED! MOVE! MOVE! MOOOVE!

More gun-wielding soldiers stormed in the glass bridge and the two Keyblade Masters jumped into action, endlessly delivering blows and blitz of their Keyblade attacks on every soldier. Blazen was quick and fast at knee which was hard for the soldiers to retaliate, while Johnny was well-balanced both in attack and defense, making hitting him difficult as he had the tendency to block every attack he received. The battle felt like it went on for hours!

The two heroes saw more soldiers coming toward them from afar.

"Aw man! More of them?" Thunder complained.

"Hey! No big deal, Johnny Boy! We can clean them up like dusts off floors!" Blazen replied.

Thunder grinned. He knew exactly what his partner was thinking, "Ohh! I know what it's time for?" He pressed another button on his helmet and a translucent dark-red frames covered his eyes. Blazen did the same.

A target sign was displayed on the screen of their frames, blinking and choosing their approaching enemies.

They pointed their Keyblades in front of them, ready for attack and cried, "FOCUS MODE!"

Thunder's Keyblade shot his targeted enemies mercilessly with more energy bullets, this time bigger than ever, while Blazen engulfed himself in flames, flew up in the air, and started shooting out multiple flames balls at his targeted enemies also. The enemies quickly got overwhelmed. Thunder and Blazen, who returned to his normal form, high-fived.

"Awesome man! That was tight!" Blazen sounded pumped.

"Yeah! Oh and by the way, it's Thunder." Thunder corrected Blazen again.

"Yeah sure, Johnny Boy!" Blazen laughed and flew ahead of Thunder. Thunder followed. But the duo stopped running when a large behemoth crashed in, blocking their path.

"Ohh man!" Blazen freaked out at the size of that thing.

"Ohh crap!" Thunder stuttered.

The Behemoth opened his jaws and let out a ferocious roar.

Thunder and Blazen looked at each other, fully determined.

"You ready man?" Blazen asked.

"I've been ready since first grade!" Thunder grinned and the two Keybearers charged at the Behemoth, delivering their best blows, but only doing slight damages at the Behemoth. The Behemoth raised his feet up in the air and landed on the ground, causing a massive quake and a crescent beam to escape from its paws midair, nailing the Keyblade heroes full-force on their stomach. They went flying to the ground.

They started getting up and they got surprised at the Behemoth charging toward them and tossed his large horns at them. Thunder's body slammed hard on the ceiling before landing on the ground, and Blazen crashed through a glass window, and more winds started to gush in. Blazen held on to the edge of the glass bridge for dear life.

The Behemoth roared wildly again as Thunder slowly and painfully got up on his feet and saw his friend in trouble.

"Blazen!" Thunder exclaimed.

"Yo! Watch out!" Blazen warned.

Thunder saw two paws dropping near his head. He nimbly dodge-rolled it. The Behemoth landed another horn thrust to its right. Thunder struck his back hard on a wall near the glass one. Thunder's vision started blurring.

The behemoth wasn't done. He charged at Thunder, but Thunder dodge-rolled again. The behemoth didn't stop charging. As it reached the wall, he curved into a large ball and rolled around the bridge in pursuit of Thunder.

"You gotta be kiddin' me!" Thunder gasped, sweats poured down his panic-striken face, "Blazen! You better do something here!"

"HELLOOOO! WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M TRYING TO DO HERE, HANGING FROM THE EDGE OF DEATH?!" Blazen struggled until he finally got back up to his feet, but was standing right at the edge of the bridge. He suddenly watched a fleet of airships flying above Thunder and the Behemoth and shooting massive explosions everywhere.

Thunder with his Keyblade started shooting endlessly at the invincible Behemoth ball that was charging toward him. Before the Behemoth ball got the chance to reach Thunder, a massive explosion pulled them apart. Shards spread out everywhere and Thunder, Blazen, and the Behemoth Ball went flying into the war-infested skies.

"SUN Flier!" Blazen glowed a ruby colored aura around him and threw his Keyblade up in the air. The Keyblade transformed back into the Sun Flier and the airship zoomed right below the falling Blazen. Blazen landed into the ship right on his pilot seat and piloted the ship toward the falling Thunder. Thunder fell onto a seat right besides Blazen. Thunder looked dazed.

"You're okay man?" the player on Rian's headset asked.

Rian breathed a sigh of relief as he reclined back to his chair, "Now I am." But then he jumped back again, "WHAT THE-?!"

The Behemoth uncurled from its ball shape and suddenly spread out wings from his back and went in pursuit of the Sun Flier.

"Target identified! Flying Behemoth. Located at 0.1 mile!" the Sun Flier locator sounded.

"The Behemoth can fly?" Thunder exclaimed at the sight of the flying creature.

"I can lose it man!" Blazen shifted gear and the Sun Flier started swinging around the skies. The Behemoth followed in the same fashion.

"I can't believe we're gonna fail the mission!" Thunder shouted.

"We can't fail!" Blazen exclaimed, "Our hearts is at stake he-ahh!"

The Sun Flier suddenly shook up violently. Thunder and Blazen's eyes dilated at the sight of one of the Sun Flier's wing being ripped out of its body. They then spotted the Behemoth flying right besides them. The Behemoth rammed onto the ship.

"AAHH!" they screamed.

BOOM!

Another explosion happened. An army of airships got spotted behind them, and a multitude of flying heartless was at their tail. They were surrounded.

"Shoot! They're too many of them!" Blazen panicked at yet another sudden turn of events.

"We can't lose man! We can't-!"

The army of heartlesses swept at the two heroes and an explosion-and their blood curling screams-overwhelmed their visions until everything turned black.

xxx

Adrian 'Rian' Rivers jumped out. The VR screen displaying his game character's point of view vanished from his sight and he saw his history professor towering before him, the VR sunglasses clutched on one hand, his smartphone on the other.

Rian gasped, recollecting what just happened. Thunder and Blazen infiltrating that facility, battling the Behemoth… yes, it's all part of that newest massive MMORPG game from Square Enix: Kingdom Hearts X Online VR; with the latest update that added metaverse (VR and AR) functionality support, enough to literally draw players into another world through the use of VR sunglasses.

And it took Rian a minute to realize he was playing that metaverse game, making noises and screaming, in the middle of his History class!

The students stifled their laughter when the history professor glared at him with Rian's gadgets on hands.

"Mr. Rivers. It appears that you have something interesting to share with the class." he said with a cagey stare, "We're all ears. Care to share?"

Rian looked around the class. All eyes were on him, filled with interest. Rian turned back to his History professor and grinned, "How much of that did you hear sir?"

"Oh, we've heard a lot." The history professor gritted his teeth through his thick mustache.

"So you know what happened next?"

The professor frowned, "No?"

Rian stood up from his seat, "…and they lived happily ever after." He shouted, arms spread out wide. "The end!"

The class exploded in laughter as the professor's smile vanished from his face.

Rian stopped smiling, dropped back to his seat and shrunk.

xxx

School was out for the weekend, but for Rian, his punishment just started. As he made his way to the front office to get ready for his weekend detention for playing the hottest game in the country right now, he stopped and paused.

For a second there he thought he heard someone call out his name for help. Is someone in trouble?

"Rian!"

No, someone did call out his name, "What the—" He turned around and was ready to run to the cry's direction when he saw a girl run toward him from a distance. He instantly recognized her—black hair tied in a low ponytail, iced-blue eyes, the tomboy outfit she wore: a white sweatshirt that said "live for rock", navy jeans, red converses, and gloves that were black and white. She was his best friend Taylor Mora.

"Taylor?" he called her.

"Rian!" she said again. It was Taylor calling out his name. "Hey what are you doing? We headin' out to Pizza Schmizza and meet up with a few friends after school, remember?"

"Can't." Rian waved his detention slip, "Got detention."

"Playing Online VR again?"

"Hey, that Behemoth battle is just as important as learning about some dead guy who made the emancipation!"

"Abraham Lincoln issued that Emancipation." Taylor corrected him, "He used it to free up the slaves. If it wasn't for him, your great-grandmother wouldn't have met the love of her life, and they wouldn't have made a family of three generation, and you wouldn't be born and—"

"We would never have met each other." Rian sighed in defeat, "Okay, okay. Point taken. It's still amazes me that part of my family is black but I'm white. Not trying to sound like a bigot here but I thought for sure I'd be more tan than I would expect."

Taylor shrugged, "Hey, whether you're tan or not, we're all the same regardless. So we gotta accept it. It's the world we live in now and it's beautiful."

"For sure."

"But hey Rian." She pulled him aside to look into his sky-blue eyes.

"Can you please ease up on that bad boy personality of yours?" She said, "Your dad got in serious trouble for it and he's still paying the price."

"Tay." Rian said, "My avatar Johnny Thunder is the bad boy. I'm just me, Adrian Rivers. I do my own thing."

"But," Taylor stuttered, "I don't want to lose you! The last thing we need is for you to be held back a grade!"

He scoffed, "Girl. This is high school. Ronald Dickson flunked all his classes last year and yet he STILL graduated. Faculties here are as soft as pudding."

"But you got detention for a whole weekend!" Taylor said.

Rian shrugged, "So?"

Taylor was at a loss of words.

"Don't worry about your boy, Tay-Tay." He put on his sunglasses and patted her on the shoulder, "I got this. You just run along to Pizza Schmizza and I'll join you shortly."

"Ohhh… kay?" she muttered.

"See ya." He winked behind the sunglasses, tossed a buddy pat on her shoulder, and walked away whistling to the tune of Shipmeister's Humoresque.

Taylor shook her head, smiling before heading out, unknown that something—a dark creature—was lurking behind the departing friends.

The creature—a heartless—pulled its head out of the floor like it was a pool of water to watch Taylor walk away. It turned its attention to Adrian walking the other direction.

It sneakily dove back into the floor and scurried toward Rian, who entered the main office not far away.

xxx

Act 1 - To Be Continued