Kingdom Hearts Keyblade Legion

by lyokoMARVELanime

Sequel to Dual Keys. Sora, Donald, Goofy return to the worlds after an event that caused them to have their memories modified, and they're off on a new adventure with Ven. But this time they've some new friends with them. Can Roxas and Xion help to save the worlds from this new evil group? Is there some deeper mystery surrounding the two siblings? Find out along with the new team.

10. China's Traditions Are Challenged

AN: [sitting in his chair with a focused, thinking pose] Hmmm...I just can't figure it out. I mean, it is a really good question, but just what would the answer be...

Ven: [walks into the room] Hey lyoko. Are Sora and Kairi still...Uh, what's with you?

AN: Hm? Oh, hi Ven. I was just thinking about something that I believe would be a very important question. Not like review answer important question, but still important all the same.

Ven: You know we really oughta do some of those today, but I still feel like I need to ask what this question you're wondering about is. Wait, don't tell me. You're trying to think of how many ways you can torture Xehanort once Sora and Kairi are done with him, right?

AN: No!...Okay, yeah, but just a little...Okay, a lot, but that's not the only thing I'm wondering about.

Xion: Well, what else is there?

Ven: What the-?! Xion, where did you come from?!

Xion: Me? I've been here for hours. I was working with Roxas, Naminé, and Riku for some of the scenes we all have in this series' version of KH3 upstairs. Now don't change the subject, please. What were you thinking about lyoko?

AN: Okay, it's actually very simple, but still very puzzling...Who would win...in a face-off...between...Kim Possible and Carmen Sandiego?

Xion&Ven: [both giving him deadpan looks] Really?

AN: What? It's a good question! I mean, think about it for a minute. They're both incredibly talented, skilled, and trained young women; they can pull off nearly impossible feats without any kind of special powers; they both have a lot of fancy gadgets; they both have some form of support team watching their backs; and if they ever do get into some kind of jam, they always find a way to get out of it a short time later. So, you have to wonder, if these two ever met each other, be it in any form or fashion, who would win between the two of them, in a fight, or some other similar manner?

Ven: You know, now that he's said all of that, I'm actually kind of curious myself. Hey, readers, if you guys are reading all of this, how about you give us your input when you review today's chapter? Let's see what you guys think.

Xion: Well, now you guys have got me curious, so guys, please cast your unofficial vote. But before that, be sure to read today's chapter and finally get some answers to previous review questions, both from the last chapter, and the one before that, assuming those haven't already been answered.

AN: Right, let's begin with some reviews that were posted by chapter 8's posting...Hm, just gotta pick one, and there are a lot of reviews that we need to answer this time...Hm...

I know! We'll start with "Anonymaton"'s chptr 8 review. Nah, man that doesn't seem too silly. If you think you can work with it, then go for it.

Next to "Dragon Rider 66", to answer your question about Roxas in relation to the whole matter of Xion being Sora and Kairi's kid...

Xion: Why did we have to bring that up again now?

AN: Because he was asking about it. Anyways, by the logic that Goofy offered, that would also make Roxas and Naminé Sora and Kairi's kids, more so in the case of Naminé than Roxas, while Roxas, who looks the way he does because of Sora having Ven's heart inside of him...Yeah, please don't make me finish that sentence. Anyway, that would mean that Roxas is basically in love with his sister. Or half-sister, whichever you prefer to think. Oh, as for the question you posed about Sora's Limit Form being a unique Drive Form, I actually really hadn't thought about it too much, but now...I'm kinda considering a few ideas, so you'll have to wait and see on that.

As for the new gummi ship's name, as I stated in Chptr 8's ending note, the naming thing was partially inspired by Star Trek, namely in how every starship Enterprise that followed Kirk's ship from the original series, had a letter added to the end of the registration number. Examples: Enterprise-A, Enterprise-B, Enterprise-C, and of course, Captain Picard's ships, Enterprise-D and Enterprise-E. I will admit that calling it the Kingdom II probably would have worked just as well, but to be honest...eh, it just felt kinda cheap and/or obvious to me. So, I followed my inner Trekie instinct and went with Kingdom A. The A doesn't really stand for anything other than to serve as a way of designating this as a different ship from the last one.

Rolling on to another chptr 8 review, "Ronin Warriors Fanatic", the idea of having Anakin and Ven spar is actually kind of interesting, so I may try to work that in somewhere if it's possible.

To "Monkey D. Conan"'s chptr 8 review, there is a good chance that Sora might have such a clash with Ventus for those reasons, so be ready for that. And as for your new questions (or new as far as that review is concerned), Ven's going to be rocking that wild beard for quite a bit, actually, but yes, it will be a little after Aqua returns to the action that he finally tames it a little more. Also, Aqua and Kairi will have already gone to Yen Sid by the time the team has met up with them, so they'll be joining the team the minute they all meet up.

Xion: Oh! Not to interrupt, but to the "Guest" reviewer of 1/18/2019, I just want to say that yes, we have seen that episode of Death Battle, and can I just say...called it! You don't bet against Scrooge McDuck.

AN: Yes, thank you for that. You are really eager to get a voice in today.

Ven: I think it's partially because she gets a good deal of character development in this world that you're having us visit starting with this chapter.

AN: Yeah, I had a hunch that was the case. Anyway, to "Sly Bahamut", yeah, there is a chance that the "Xion is Sora and Kairi's daughter" thing may become something of a running gag, but at the moment, I haven't really found too many places to really work it in just yet. Mainly because the gang's mainly introducing Roxas and Xion as Sora's long lost siblings and all. One of which may very likely be the "mother's" reaction. Oh, and as for the Code Lyoko connection to this story, I've got a strong plan in place for that already, but you don't have to worry too much, because Aelita is involved. And that's all I can say about it at this time.

A quick shot-out to "Anonimosx" for that detail that was mentioned regarding Kairi and Naminé, because you definitely make a good point. If Roxas could use the Keyblade because he's Sora's Nobody, who's to say Naminé can't do the same due to being Kairi's Nobody. I will definitely be trying to work that into this series. Maybe not in this story, but certainly later on down the line.

To everyone else who asked about Roxas's connection to the Samurai Nobodies and what not...well, let's just say that you got a small glimpse of what may happen there in the previous chapter. Also, Ven and Aqua will eventually meet the Lingering Will at some point, and their reactions will be something to behold.

Let's move it on to the reviews for last chapter now...

Xion: Uh, maybe we should hold off on that until the ending note. This one's getting kinda long with all the stuff you said for chptr 8's reviews.

Ven: You're just saying that because you want everyone to see how awesome you were in this chapter, aren't you?

Xion: A little bit, yeah, but this starting note is getting long.

AN: Okay. Fine, fine. I'll leave the last chapter's review answers for the ending note this time. Just don't let me forget.

Xion: We won't. Well, I won't at least.

Ven: Hey, what do I look like? Sora or Roxas? Uh, don't answer that.

AN: Wasn't planning to. I was just hoping you would realize how stupid that question was all on your own. Now let's move on to the story and see if someone will make a man out of our adventurers!...Heh, see what I did there?...

I do not own anything from Kingdom Hearts or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

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Chapter X

You would think that setting out for another world would have left the team feeling really ecstatic, to say the least, but that was not the case this time around. Shortly after passing through the world barrier of Hollow Bastion, the team had actually received some very important news from Chip and Dale, and it had left most of them more than a little worried. "Something's happened to Twilight Town," Chip had started out.

"It's gone," Dale simplified, not beating around the bush or using any form of tact whatsoever. "One minute it was there, and then the next, it's just a strange, black blob on the world map."

"But…But how's that possible," Roxas asked, obviously worried for the world he had once called home, even if it was only in a virtual simulation, and he was not alone in that worry, given how upset Xion looked.

"It shouldn't be," Ventus replied. "No world can just disappear. Not unless its heart was consumed by the Heartless or a similar event has occurred, and there haven't been any Heartless in Twilight Town for a little over half a year. That's probably the one thing we can actually thank the Organization for, but mostly you two."

Hearing Ventus tell them that did cheer up Roxas and Xion a little, but it did not give them any answers on what had happened to what had been their home for as long as they could remember, at least in the memories that Naminé had given them. Sora was also really worried, both for his sibling disciples' sake and for that of their friends from that world, so it came as little surprise that he was the one to repeat the question. "So what could have happened? Is this something that the Organization could've done?"

"Maybe…" Ventus mused to himself, a hand to his chin in thought. "Chip, Dale, what exactly happened? Was there any kind of weird reading coming from the town before it seemed to vanish?"

"Not that we can see," Chip reported. "One minute everything was just fine, and then the next, Twilight Town's just gone."

"It's still technically on the map, but it's not registering as a world that you can reach or even travel too. If we didn't know better, I'd say that someone has somehow closed it off to anyone from the outside," Dale added on.

"Are you sure you didn't do something you shouldn't have on the computer," Donald questioned.

"Yes! We're not amateurs," both chipmunks snapped, clearly offended by that question.

"Wait, wasn't Master Yen Sid's tower really close to Twilight Town too? What if this is something that he's doing in order to keep the town safe," Goofy pointed out.

"We thought the same thing, and we've been trying to reach him since, but he's not responding to any of our calls," Dale admitted.

"And there hasn't been any sign of the tower having moved to a new location like it tends to do every now and then, either," Chip finished.

Ventus pondered over all of this information in his head for a minute before he finally said, "Keep looking into it, and let us know at the first sign of anything changing. We'll look into it when that happens, if we're able to at the time. For now, we should focus on what's happening on the other worlds." He then turned to the three younger Keybearers and added, "And we should also focus on getting you three trained up as well."

That was about an hour ago now, and the Kingdom was still in transit to the next closest world to Hollow Bastion, with the four Keyblade wielders all down in the simulator room doing various exercises to further their training. At the moment, Xion was practicing her combat abilities, trying to figure out why she kept feeling so awkward whenever she fought. Meanwhile, Sora was a short distance away from her, practicing his magic and skills with the Command Styles so that he could finally say he was fully back in the groove of things with those skills, or at least the latter, if nothing else. The main reason why he was not too far from Xion was because Ven wanted Sora to keep an eye on Xion's progress, at least in terms of whatever magic or attacks she was using, in the hopes that Sora could assist the girl in getting a better grasp on her powers. After all, Sora had already helped Xion learn how to use lightning magic, so who was to say that he could not help her learn a few other techniques as well.

As for Roxas and Ventus, the two were actually having a little sparring match at the moment, locking blades with one another in the little battle arena that was further away from the other two, so as not to distract Sora and Xion from what they were doing. Given how often and how loudly their blades would clash against each other, this may have been a well-founded concern, but to the two blondes, it may as well have barely even been mild static. Throughout the entire spar, Roxas displayed a very great level of skill in his dual wielding abilities, almost to the point where Ventus was having trouble keeping up at times, in fact. Then again, Ventus was doing his best to hold back his full power, because this was just training after all, but he was soon having to up his game just a little in order to keep Roxas on his toes. Of course, this spar was also to help Ven teach Roxas an important lesson that the young man needed to learn, and he had no problem teaching it time and again. Almost every time that their blades locked, Roxas had pressed down using both his blades and left himself open for when Ventus blasted him back with some form of magic using his free hand. Usually it was just a quick blast of wind magic, but there were times when Ven mixed it up and shot off a small Blizzard or two to help drive home the point he was hoping to make here. After seeing that Roxas was still getting up and trying to rush him over and over again, Ven decided that it was time to end things, and quickly sped into action, starting with making Roxas lose one of his Keyblades. The minute that Oblivion had left his hand, Roxas had gone on the defensive, all the while trying to recover the blade, either by summoning it back or rushing over to where it landed, while it was still materialized, but Ven made it a point to not allow Roxas the chance to do either. Finally, Roxas's guard was completely broken, and he had no choice but to concede defeat after getting pinned down with the tip of Guardian Wind being held at his neck.

"You did well," Ventus complimented as he helped his younger doppelganger up. "Really well, to be honest, and you definitely show great skill in being able to dual wield, even so early into your training."

"Maybe its muscle memory or instinct," Roxas shrugged, feeling a bit modest all of a sudden, even if he was a little peeved over his defeat. "I mean, I can kinda remember using two Keyblades before, at least when me and Xion were making that last escape, but for the most part, I was just going off of whatever felt natural, letting the Keyblades guide me."

"And that's good. The Keyblade, or in your case Keyblades can often serve as a powerful guide in battle, and for directing its wielder to a threat or danger, but there are still areas where you should improve," Ventus reassured him while also making it a point to keep his tone as neutral and strict as he could. "You need to not rely on using both blades so much, otherwise, you'll be unprepared for a moment when you can only use one, like you were just now. More to the point, you should at least try to practice using your magic in battle a little more. Since you can use two Keyblades, you have two different tools for focusing and directing your magic. Granted, that's always true, given that some people can cast magic through their hands, like I did during our spar, but having something like the Keyblade to direct it definitely takes the pressure off by quite a bit. Since you can use two Keyblades, you should try to learn how to attack with one and cast with the other. It could be something that would save you in the near future."

Roxas nodded along to what Ven was saying for a little bit, before he lowered his head in thought. He knew that Ven was right, but for some reason, he did not really see himself using magic all that much. Granted, he knew that it was useful to know, but it just seemed like something that he was not likely to use, since he liked to be a more up-front approach to things. Plus, there was one other point he was concerned about. "Are you sure it's smart for me to try and only use one of my Keyblades or the other?"

"What do you mean," Ven asked, not understanding what his apprentice was asking.

"It's just…you said that the ability naturally to dual wield Keyblades comes from having a perfect balance between the light and darkness in one's heart, and I can't help but worry that using one Keyblade over the other may cause problems with that, at least for me," Roxas tried to explain, hoping that he was at least making sense to Ventus when he spoke. "You see, it might sound silly, but I always feel like my Keyblades represent the light and darkness in my heart, so if I were to use one or the other, then I'm afraid that I might throw that balance off."

"Hmm, I see," Ventus mused, understanding what Roxas was getting at entirely. After all, he was not wrong in believing that about his Keyblades. These were Keyblades that were born from the bonds that Sora shared with Kairi and Riku, after all, so it was only natural that they would each hold a certain tie to the light and darkness in some small way. With that mind, Ven was quick to come up with a solution to the problem. "In that case, I would try to figure out how long you can comfortably use one blade on its own before switching to the other. That way, you won't have to worry so much about the balance in your heart being disturbed too much. It may not seem necessary for you to know how to only use one blade, but the chances of there being a time when you can't use two are very high all the same. Like the old saying goes, better to have it and not need it…"

"Yeah, I see your point," Roxas admitted. "So, I guess I should start working on figuring out how to measure my balance in relation to how long I use just one of my Keyblades over the other, huh?"

"If you want, but first, how about we see how Sora and Xion are coming along," Ventus suggested, and with that, the two blondes left their battleground to see how the other two apprentices were doing.

When they reached Sora and Xion's location, it did not take long to figure out that the girl was still struggling, given that her groans of frustration could likely have been heard for miles, but Sora seemed to be pretty happy with his own progress, so Ven figured he would check on him first. Not that the decision was all that hard to make, given that Sora was the first to notice their approach and quickly waved them over, likely so he could show off a little bit. "Hey you guys," Sora greeted once the blondes had reached him. "Already done with the sparring session?"

"For now, yeah," Ventus replied. "So, how well are you doing, Sora?"

"Well, I'm still not quite back to full strength with my magic, but I can use all of the level two spells that I learned last year again without too much trouble. Plus, all of my Shotlocks are definitely good to go, too," Sora reported.

"Not surprising. You've always had a bit of a natural talent for Shotlocks," Ventus pointed out with a small chuckle, one that Roxas did not hesitate to share in.

Sora's response was to simply grin sheepishly, having forgotten about that for a moment himself, but he soon shook it off so he could continue. "I've mostly been practicing with the Command Styles, and I've gotten it down to where I can use them all without too much trouble again, including my Unique Tier One Style. Just watch."

The two blondes were then treated to a show of Sora displaying his skills in the Command Styles, and were both impressed to see Sora cycle through each of the four Command Styles that he could use like he was performing a simple dance. He started off with a blazing display of Firestorm, then moved on to the chilling force of Diamond Dust, from which he jumped into the force of Thunderbolt, and he easily finished with unleashing the full power of Destiny Blaze, all of which he used the finishers for to make his showcase even more spectacular. The last one had earned him a round of applause from his audience of two, and they were all sure that if Xion were paying attention, she would have been clapping as well. Hearing that applause, Sora could not help but bow in thanks, his grin not fading even a little all the while.

"Very impressive work, Sora," Ventus approved while rubbing his first apprentice on the head in a similar manner to how Terra used to do the same with him. "You've definitely gotten a lot better, and it seems that you're finally close to shaking off the last of those side-effects from your year-long nap. From the look of things, you just might be ready for the next step in Command Style training."

"Really?! Well then what're we waiting for," Sora excitedly cheered, eager to start learning more new stuff.

"Hold up there, kid. There's just one thing I want you to try and learn before we start that," Ventus determined, pulling a solid stop on Sora's excitement. "I want you try and practice with summoning up the power of your Unique Command Style on your own, without the need to use any specific magic or attacks."

"Huh? But I thought you said that only Keyblade wielders with a large magic reserves and years of training could do that," Sora pointed out, having remembered that particular lesson from a year ago. It was a little hard to forget, seeing as it was the one that had immediately followed after their first visit to Olympus Coliseum and came just before their crash-landing in Deep Jungle.

"Normally, this is true, but after seeing you suddenly dual wield Keyblades in our final battle against Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, I get the feeling that your magic reserves may be a little bit bigger than we give them credit for," Ventus offered up. "I'll admit that this is just a theory, and you don't necessarily need to be able to do this in order to move on to the next stage, but given how difficult our new journey is expected to be, it couldn't hurt to at least try and see if you can do it without exhausting yourself too much."

Sora nodded in understanding of this, and then readied his Keyblade before asking, "So, how I do this?"

Ventus nodded in approval of Sora's eagerness, and gave him some simple instructions that he had been given when he started learning this skill. "For one thing, you must be able to attain a calm, relaxed state of mind; let nothing worry or concern you. Once that's done, think of the energy that builds up inside you which signals you are close to being able to activate your Unique Command Style, imagine the rush that same ability gives you when its unleashed, and then merge those two feelings together as you bring them to the surface, adding a little extra push with your magic in order to do so as needed. If you can accomplish this, you should be able to summon the power of your Unique Command Style on command, without needing to use any other abilities." He then paused to let that sink in before turning away at the sound of another annoyed groan from Xion, and knew that he should move on to his third apprentice very soon. "Why don't you and Roxas work together on this? Having someone to spar with may help you in better getting a feel for summoning up this strength in the heat of battle, and in the process, you may even be able to help Roxas figure out the Command Styles for himself."

The two boys both nodded in response, and with that, Ventus dismissed himself from them, already hearing Roxas questioning his senior apprentice on how to use the Command Styles before the two could start going at it in a spar to help Sora with his newest goal. In truth, Ven was a little unsure if Roxas would be able to use the Command Styles, given his natural dual-wielding ability, but that did not mean he could at least attempt to help the kid to learn them. After all, you never knew if something was possible until you made the effort to make it happen. For now though, he needed to worry about whatever Xion was having trouble with, and it looked like he needed to worry quite a bit, as Xion's latest attempts at dealing with her strange discomfort in battle had ended with her tossing Two Become One to the ground with a loud, frustrated groan.

"Whoa, easy there, champ. I know you're frustrated, but don't take it out on your Keyblade. It didn't do anything to you," Ventus lightly joked in an attempt to break the tension. He had to pause and think afterwards though, before he amended, "Well, it did choose you to be its wielder and take on everything that goes with that, but aside from that…"

"I know, I know," Xion groaned tiredly, mentally apologizing to Two Become One as it disappeared in the usual show of lights. "I just…I don't what it is that I'm doing wrong. Every move I make should be flowing cleanly and just feel natural, but the more I do each of these drills, the more it feels like something isn't right, or that I'm just tripping over myself."

Ventus hummed in thought after the girl had finished her brief moment of venting, and then gestured for her to stand up again as he requested, "How about you try one of the more simple drills again, and this time let me watch to see if I can figure out what it is that's throwing you off. Maybe having an extra pair of eyes will help make things clearer a little more quickly."

She had to take a deep breath to help better calm her nerves before doing anything else, but Xion did still nod in agreement with Ven and moved back to where she had started so she could run the drill once more. The minute she was ready, Ven gave her a simple word to begin, and the girl went at it right away. Everything seemed fine from where Ven was standing, but after a moment or two, he could see Xion tripping up slightly as she flowed from one move to another, clearly trying to make a last minute correction to her movements before she made a full-fledged mistake. It did not slow her down for too long though, as she was soon dancing across the training ground again with the same flow as before, only to misstep once more and nearly fall over. That time though, Ven noticed something that she had not, mainly due to her frustration at making another mistake, and he made it a point to watch a little more carefully to see if the same thing repeated later on. A few moments later, he saw it again, and that was when things started to click for him.

"That's enough, Xion," Ventus called out, making it clear she could stop now, and the girl simply dismissed her Keyblade with a frustrated sigh as she plopped down on the simulated grass. Ven figured it would be good to wait a moment before he said anything so that Xion could get her breath, and maybe get any mental rants out of the way if she needed to, and after a few minutes of watching her and listening to the two boys sparring a bit in the distance, Ven finally approached and opened the discussion on what he suspected with a simple question. "Xion, which hand do you write with?"

"Huh? What's that have to do with anything," the girl questioned, not knowing where that had come from all of a sudden.

"Just humor me," Ventus requested, which also served to tell Xion that he had a theory that may or may not be true depending on her answer.

Xion shrugged afterwards and prepared to answer when a thought suddenly occurred to her. "I'm…I'm not sure," she admitted. "I don't really remember doing all that much writing back in the Virtual Twilight Town, but…I always figured I was right-handed like Roxas and Sora."

Ventus nodded in reply to that before he looked up to the simulated sky, and said, "Computer, generate a writing desk with pen and paper." A second later, the requested items appeared beside the two, and the blonde was then guiding Xion over to the desk. Once he had sat her down, he gave Xion another surprising request. "Write something for me. Doesn't matter what, but what I want you to do is just write however feels most natural to you."

Now Xion was really confused as to what was going on, but she figured she might as well roll with it since Ven did not seem like he was going to give her a straight answer just yet. With that, she picked up the pen and started to think of something to write. She did not have to think too long, as the pen was soon scratching out words onto the paper a few seconds later, but for some reason, she felt just as awkward writing out the words as she had whenever she was in a fight. More than that, for some reason, her words came out all strange and so illegible that you could barely tell what each letter was. Just when she was about to toss the pen aside out of further anger, thinking that this was just another sign of how she was not an actual person, but something that someone created, Ventus cut those thoughts out with a few simple sentences that gave her a sudden bout of inspiration.

"Remember, don't get frustrated. You just need to do what feels natural," the blonde master instructed. "After all…you do have more than one hand."

The minute she heard that last part, Xion glanced at her left hand in thought for a few seconds, and then, without even thinking about it, she tossed the pen over to said hand and started again. This time, everything came out so perfectly and beautifully that you would think that Xion had turned writing mere words into an incredible art form. Ven was especially impressed, because he did even remember Aqua's handwriting ever looking that beautiful, which was saying something since she had the best handwriting out of their entire trio, a fact that was further enforced when she once showed him some of the papers she had written magic notes on before they had met. Even as a child, Aqua had lovely handwriting, almost to the point where it did not even look like a child's handwriting, but at that moment, Xion almost seemed like she was able to write using perfect calligraphy. Ven was so surprised that he almost did not notice when Xion finally put the pen down and handed the paper to him to show she was finished.

Ven accepted the page almost on instinct, making a note to read it later, and then smirked at Xion and said, "Well, I'd say that confirms it."

"Confirms what," Xion asked, a little peeved that Ven did not stop to read what she wrote right away. She figured that he seemed especially interested a minute ago, so why would he not read it now?

"The reason why you're so off balance in all of your fights," Ventus clarified. "Xion…you're left-handed."

That surprised Xion a bit. Sure, she had just written something out using her left hand, and did a lot better than she had with her right, but she did not think that it meant anything special. "Are you sure," Xion asked. "I mean, that doesn't make sense since I was created to be a Replica of Sora…Or Roxas…You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do, and I also recall telling you that you had built your own identity ages ago. Nothing said that stopped at just you having your own face and thoughts," Ventus pointed out. "I can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner. The signs were all there for a while now. That time in the alley when you summoned the Keyblade using your left hand, how you fought Axel soon after without transferring it to your other hand right away…It was staring us in the face the whole time and we never even noticed it."

"So…is it bad that I'm left-handed," Xion asked, obviously worried about what this meant for her.

"No, no, it's not bad, Xion. Not at all. We just need to get you used to summoning your Keyblade into your left hand while trying to make sure that you remember to use a different orientation than the rest of us when we're running through drills and sword training. If anything, this makes you especially unique, and that's something to be proud of," Ventus promised.

Xion smiled a little after hearing that, and without another word, she prepared to run the drills again, this time summoning Two Become One into her left hand. Since they now knew that was her dominant hand, Ven was not surprised how quickly she had managed to adjust to summoning the Keyblade into it, but he was definitely pleased to see how quickly she was adjusting her drills and practice routines, along with how she was no longer tripping over herself or looking awkward as she ran those drills. When she started to mix things up by also adding in a few magic blasts from her right hand, Ven knew that Xion had definitely found her groove, and could not help but applaud for her when she finished the run. What he did not expect was that he would not be the only one clapping when the girl finished.

Upon hearing additional sets of hands clapping for her along with Ven's, Xion spun around to see Roxas and Sora both grinning widely as they cheered for her success. "Nice run, Sis," Roxas called out.

"Yeah, you were awesome," Sora agreed.

Xion could not help it. Her face had quickly gained a small tint of red at the praise she was receiving, but all the same, her smile was as wide as could be. It really meant a lot to hear everyone praising her for her success, even if it did not seem like something one should be throwing a party over to her, but for some reason, this just seemed a lot more special to her than it probably would have to the average person. Xion could not help but wonder why that was, but when she came up blank, she figured it might have had something to do with her time in the Organization. After all, the memories she did recover did give off the impression that a lot of the other members did not think too much of her, so it made sense that she would feel a great deal of relief at hearing praise from her new teammates.

Ventus was about to say that they should carry on with another round of training when Donald's voice sounded over the ship's intercom. "Attention all hands. We're approaching our destination. Repeat, all hands, we're approaching our destination. Come on up to the cockpit and see for yourselves."

That alone was signal enough for the four to know that their training session was over for now, and Ventus immediately ended the program before they exited simulator bay and rushed up to the cockpit. As they were going though, Sora suddenly got a nostalgic smile on his face that made the others curious, prompting him to explain, "I just got a bit of déjà vu. This is almost exactly like what happened after me, Ven, Donald, and Goofy all met up a year ago and we reached our first world after Traverse Town."

"Oh yeah. You're right," Ven chuckled in realization. "Wow, I'd almost forgotten about that. I can't believe you remembered."

"How could I not? It was my very first ride on a gummi ship, and the first time I had ever traveled between worlds. Sure, it wasn't all that exciting since I spent most of it meditating, but still…" Sora pointed out, earning him a playful shove from Ventus that was coupled with smiles from everyone else in the group.

Upon reaching the bridge, the team could all see the world just outside the ship's viewport, and the first thing they noticed was the large palace that seemed to rest on top of the world, almost dominating the upper half with its size. The second thing was the dragon symbol in the middle of the world, with strange writing on either side of the symbol that none of them could really see at their current distance, and they doubted that they would be able to make too much sense of it even they could see it better, because it was obviously in another language. There was not much else to say about the sight before them, but it did not need to be said as Ventus quickly recognized this world.

"Hey, I think this is the Land of Dragons," Ventus exclaimed in excitement.

"Have you been here before, Ven," Sora asked.

"Well, no. I only know about it by reputation and what I've read," Ventus clarified. "But I do remember Master Eraqus once telling me, Terra, and Aqua that this was one of his favorite worlds, aside from the Land of Departure. He'd tell us all kinds of stories about how the land was protected by guardian dragon spirits that came in various sizes and powers, and that the people here held a great deal of honor, often to the point where their actions were dictated by that honor."

"Wow, that sounds so cool," Roxas gasped in awe. "Well, what're we waiting for? Let's get down there and have a look around."

The team all nodded in agreement, and with that, Donald brought the ship into a stable orbit around the world, and the team quickly scrambled to the teleporter, eager to transport down and see what awaited them in this world. Although, some of them were a little bit nervous about what would happen if they did meet one of these dragon spirits that Ven mentioned, and whether or not they would be friendly or hostile towards them.

---

"I think I'm starting to get used to that," Xion noted, referring to the gummi teleporter when the team materialized on the world's surface. This was only her second time using said method of boarding to from the ship, and she was really hoping to forget about her first trip very quickly. It was both embarrassing and left her with an unpleasant feeling in her stomach that she was not sure would go away any time soon.

"Speak for yourself," Roxas groaned as he rubbed his own stomach, feeling like his lunch was about to come back up for another visit.

"Don't worry. You'll get used to it," Ven reassured his fellow blonde. "It just takes a little longer for some folks than others. Trust me; it actually took me several months before I got used to that thing."

Roxas smiled in appreciation of Ven's words, but his stomach did a few unpleasant flips when Sora added his own two cents. "Just be glad that you're first landing via the teleporter put you on solid ground. First time I used it, we were being dropped down in midair, albeit slowly."

"Sora, the mere thought of that…Not helping," Roxas cautioned, now feeling it was even more likely he was going to throw up. Of course, that passed when he picked up on an odd sent that made him stop and start sniffing the air. "Hey, do you guys smell smoke?"

Everyone immediately stopped and started sniffing the air as well, and they all immediately picked up on the scent of smoke that Roxas was referring to. Moving closer to the bamboo trees around them, Goofy carefully parted the trees in an attempt to locate the source, and quickly gasped, "Hey fellers! Look!"

Turning to see through the trees as Goofy was, the team were all greeted by the sight of a nearby village, or what was left of it, because it was clear as day that it was recently burned down, much to their horror. Upon taking a second look, they could also see a figure standing amidst the ruins with a bird on his shoulder, and it did not appear he was looking for survivors. If anything, the man seemed to be relishing in the destruction from what they could tell. Of course, the village was too far away for them to be able to smell the smoke so clearly, and from what Ven could tell, the smoke Roxas's had smelled was coming from a fire that was still burning, so he immediately waved for them to move forward in an attempt to find the source. They still made a note to keep an eye out for the guy in the village later on, just to be safe, because they had a hunch they would be seeing him again sooner or later.

As they made their way through the bamboo trees, the team started to pick up on the sound of some voices close by, and they quickly slowed their pace a bit more in an attempt to make their approach a little quieter. When they came around the corner, they immediately ducked out of sight again upon seeing that there were people present, or rather a person in green and black armor and another, shadowy figure, and it was clear that the person in question was more than a little scared. Looking to the shadowy figure towering over the individual that they had spotted, and seeing its menacing stance and red eyes, it was no surprise that the team was all starting to draw up one conclusion very quickly, because it did not look like the shadowy figure was too friendly.

"A Heartless," Donald whispered in question.

"Well, it definitely isn't a Nobody, and it doesn't look too friendly either," Roxas reasoned out.

"Let's get the jump on 'im," Xion suggested, and both of the other two seemed to agree with him.

"I don't know guys," Ventus whispered, hoping to reason with the three before they charged.

"Gawrsh, maybe we better look before we leap," Goofy agreed, but both his and Ven's words fell on deaf ears, because Xion, Roxas, and Donald were already moving in with battle cries being yelled.

Hearing the three charging towards them, the figure that was standing before the shadowy creature let out a very girlish yelp of fright, and ducked down in fear. At the same time, the shadowy figure seemed to quickly shrink before something small and red jumped out from behind the rocks and ducked underneath the armored person with a frightened cry of its own. When he heard the second cry, Sora instantly recognized the voice, and did not hesitate to jump in between the two groups with his arms spread out in an attempt to keep them separated. "Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute," Sora shouted, making his friends screech to a halt. He then turned towards the hunched over figure as he asked, "Ven, is that Mushu?"

"Wait, Mushu? As in the last summon you got on our last adventure, Mushu," Ventus questioned, just to make sure he heard right.

The blonde's answer came not from Sora, but from the dragon in question as he sprang out from his hiding place and began trying to come off as threatening without ever looking at the people he was talking to. "That's right. I know you heard of me! I'm little, lethal, and legendary! Now ya'll scram before I get my dragon dander up!"

"Hey, Mushu! We missed you," Sora waved in greeting.

"Yeah, well you better HOPE I miss YOU, or else you're…you're…" Mushu started threaten in retort until the words finally registered in his mind and made him turn to see who he was talking to at last. The minute he did, his face brightened up into a wide, bright smile, filled with pointed teeth as he cheered, "Sora! Ven! And…other two guys!"

"Hey," Donald growled while Goofy just crossed his arms. They were not really too upset, seeing as they never really met Mushu in person up until now, but it was still a bit hurtful to be referred to that way.

"Do you know them," the armored person questioned, their voice giving them away as a woman, but it seemed like only Xion and Ventus had taken notice of that, as the others were too focused on Mushu to pay attention.

"Know them," Mushu echoed in question as he slithered down to the ground and walked over to Sora and the gang. "Man, we used to kick all kinds of bad guy butt together! Yeah, you know, I helped these guys out of a lot of tight spots. 'Cause I'm a mighty dragon! Right?"

As he finished explaining to his friend, Mushu had ended up leaning back on Sora's leg in an attempt to look cool, but the effect was quickly killed when Sora moved back a bit and caused the dragon to topple over, much to everyone's amusement. "Something like that," Sora chuckled. "And…you are?"

"I'm Mulan," the woman started to say as she stood up, only to flinch back a little and quickly begin stuttering seconds later, while attempting to deepen her voice. "Um, no, I-I mean…"

"Ping," Mushu quickly provided.

"Mulan Ping," Donald repeated in question.

"Just Ping," she corrected while trying to strike a pose that she probably thought came off as manly. "I am Ping, son of Fa Zhou."

"You know Mushu," Sora asked as said dragon finally picked himself up, while Xion just gave Ping a curious look, trying to figure out why the woman was pretending to be a man. She was so busy puzzling the question that she almost missed out on the rest of the conversation. Almost.

"Mushu's one of my family's guardians," Ping replied.

Hearing that instantly made Goofy's cross expression fall into a more apologetic one, as he stepped forward and said, "We didn't know we were borrowin' somebody as important as a family guardian."

"Yeah, that's right," Mushu cut in, startling the six a little before he climbed up onto Ping's shoulder. "And that puts you four up to your eyeballs in debut to Ping here. Well, guess what, kiddies? It's payback time!"

The whole time Mushu was talking, he had missed the nervous smile that Ping was giving the group, clearly uncomfortable with what the dragon was saying, but when he got to the part about payback, Ping could not keep quiet any longer. "Mushu…" she whispered in warning.

"Ah, they don't mind. Ain't that right," Mushu waved off.

"Hmm, sounds fair," Sora agreed, having already determined that he was going to help out his old friend a little anyways after the help that Mushu had given him on their last journey.

"We were already passing through to deal with a few things, anyway," Ventus added in, but still curious about just what it was they had to do. If it was anything too sketchy, there was no way he was going to let any of his friends get mixed up in the dragons' mess, even if it was to help the girl pretending to be a boy. Still, there was something else that he had to correct the dragon on, and he did not hesitate to do so. "But I hope you don't mind that all six of us lend a hand."

"Six," Mushu questioned, turning around to the two newest members of the team at last. "Oh! Sorry, didn't see you two there. I'm guessing you're some new buddies that these guys picked up somewhere?"

"Pretty much," Roxas nodded. "I'm Roxas, and this is my sister, Xion."

Mushu nodded in greeting, studying Roxas for a minute before he finally asked, "So are you related to Ven, or something, because you look a lot like him."

"No, we're not related to Ven. Xion and I are actually…Sora's younger siblings," Roxas immediately replied, having seen that coming, but he was still a bit hesitant about introducing himself and Xion as Sora's brother and sister. They still had not had that talk with Sora that they intended to have after the first time they were introduced as such in Hollow Bastion. Wanting to get back on track, he quickly asked, "So what exactly was it that you wanted our help with?"

Mushu was more than happy to get back to the original topic, and happily explained, "See, Ping here was just on his way to join the Imperial army. We gotta go find the other recruits over at the training camp."

"Would you join us," Ping asked. "It'll be easier to fit in if I'm with guys, like you." He then glanced at Xion for a minute before she started to add, "Although…"

"What do you mean, 'fit in,'" Sora interrupted before Ping could finish whatever she was about to say.

"Well, um, uh, don't—don't worry about that," Mushu stuttered in an attempt to cover Ping's blunder, but it was already too late, and Xion had certainly had enough by now.

"She means that she's pretending to be a boy, you guys," Xion sighed, irritably, clearly annoyed with how clueless some of her friends were being, and with the act that "Ping" was putting up.

Everyone had fallen silent for a few minutes, with most of the group processing what Xion had just revealed, until finally, Sora, Donald, and Roxas let out small cries of surprise. Hearing that drew another irritated huff from Xion along with a quick slap to her forehead in disbelief, but she was able to take some comfort in the fact that it seemed at least Goofy and Ventus had already figured it out too. "You're a…girl," Sora gasped with his voice cracking a little due to his surprise.

With her cover now blown "Ping" had completely dropped her attempts at appearing like a man, and nervously folded her hands with a bit of a blush as she asked, "You didn't notice?"

"Not me," Sora admitted while Donald just shook his head in the negative.

When she noticed that her brother was not giving a similar response, Xion immediately leveled Roxas with an angry look, making him jump back a little in fear. He had seen that look a few times before, and he knew that it usually meant pain was sure to follow if he did not say or do something to appease his sister quickly. "Uh…Well…I-I was a bit…skeptical, but…I just…I just didn't want to say anything right away," Roxas stuttered.

That did not really improve Xion's look by much, but it was enough to the point where she finally backed off just enough to let Roxas know he was safe…for now. "Ping" did not seem to notice the silent exchange between the twins, because she just seemed happy to have fooled someone with her little ruse. "I think it's working," she happily told Mushu.

"I don't know…Those two would fall for anything. Same seems likely for that new guy, too," Mushu shrugged, clearly still a bit skeptical.

"I'm right here," Sora and Roxas both reminded the little dragon.

"Hey," Donald snapped once again.

"No, you three deserve that, because you're all idiots," a very irritated Xion practically yelled, startling the boys and Ping a little. She then took a deep breath to try and calm down a bit, and then approached the disguised woman as calmly as she could. "I'm guessing your real name is Mulan, right? Since that's the name you were using at first."

"Yes," Mulan sighed, clearly feeling a little more embarrassed, and a bit let down at the knowledge that she had not fooled everyone. "Was it really that obvious?"

"Yeah, pretty much, but I'm sure that it's mainly because, well, for one thing, I'm a girl, and for another, I actually have and use my brain, unlike my brothers," Xion answered, giving a side glare to the dimwitted trio, but mainly to said brothers as she finished. When she saw Sora and Roxas rubbing the backs of their heads in a sheepish manner, she turned back to Mulan and asked, "What I don't get is why you're pretending to be a boy in the first place. I mean, it's not like they won't let you in just because you're not a boy, right?"

"Actually…that's exactly the case," Mulan revealed.

"…Come. Again," Xion slowly asked, and the minute he heard her speaking in that slowly, icy tone of hers, Roxas immediately turned almost as pale as a ghost. Roxas knew when Xion started to speak like that, it was a strong indicator of being pissed to the point where someone would have to be insane to try and get in between her and whatever was the source of her anger without a surefire way of calming her down. Not that the others seemed to notice, as they were more interested in hearing the explanation Mulan was giving about her land's culture.

"Only men can enlist to join the army, usually the first born sons of each family," Mulan repeated, not knowing the storm she was stirring up in Xion. "I don't have any brothers, so my father would've had to join, but he had already served in the Chinese army, and afterwards…He still needs to take medicine for the injuries he had received. Add that in with the fact that my father isn't as young as he once was, and I felt that I had no other choice but to do this in order to save his life, because if he did return to serve again, he would have died."

"I see," Ventus and the others all nodded in understanding, truly feeling sorry for Mulan's father after hearing all of this, but also feeling very impressed with how brave she was to do all of this for his sake. Still, it did not keep him from taking notice of how the culture of this world appeared to be. "I know I shouldn't be too surprised by all of this, given that my master told me that some…uh, lands still followed older traditions, including ones that did not consider women capable of being fighters, or as anything more than people who should remain at home to tend to the house and kids, but still, I can't help but think that's a bit stupid. I mean no offense when I say all of this, Mulan."

"None taken; believe me," Mulan reassured him.

"Uh, guys," Roxas tried to say as he noticed Xion was getting even angrier by the minute with every word that was being said, but he seemed to have been largely ignored.

"I'm with you on that, Ven," Sora agreed. "After all, some of the toughest and bravest people we know are girls, and I don't just mean the girls who could and would kick our butts in a fight if we ever questioned that. If Kairi was here right now and heard about this, I'm pretty sure she would be really upset the point of steam actually coming out of her ears."

"Oh trust me, it would be a lot worse than that if Aqua was here," Ventus stated with a fond smile. "She may have been the most composed and well-mannered in our group of friends, but if someone ever seriously made her feel like she had less value in anything just because she was a girl, she would have destroyed them in an instant. Trust me, the story of how Terra learned that the hard way still keeps me up at night sometimes."

"Uh, guys," Roxas called again, even more nervous than before, only to be ignored once again.

"And let's not forget Daisy and Queen Minnie," Goofy pointed out, taking a moment to recollect on the number of times that his best friends' girls were mad. "Why, just the idea of Queen Minnie being upset would get His Majesty running for the hills in an attempt to find some way to make things better before it got ugly."

Ven and Donald immediately nodded in agreement with that, having seen some occurrences of that very scenario firsthand. He then looked back to Mulan and continued, "Still, the fact is, it's brave of you to do something like this, even if it goes against your culture, so I think I speak for all of us when I say that we'd be more than happy to help in any way that…"

"GUYS," Roxas shouted.

"What," the other four asked as they turned to the dual Keyblade wielder, only to pale almost as much as he had when they noticed what he was trying to tell them.

Xion was now absolutely seething to the point where she seemed to have a dangerous aura around her that promised death to any who dared to approach her, while her eyes were glaring so fiercely into the ground that they were surprised that nothing had spontaneously started to combust at least. In fact, the sight of Xion being this mad had even frightened Donald and Goofy into hiding behind Sora, who was as still as a statue at the moment, while Mushu ducked into Mulan's scarf to hide as well. Even Ventus was a bit scared of the girl at that moment, and considering the things he has done and seen in his time as a Keyblade wielder, some of which were indeed very frightening, that was no small feat to accomplish. Still, the Keyblade master at least appeared to be faring better than the others at the moment, and was about to slowly approach Xion in the hopes of calming her down a bit, but she was already speaking before he could even attempt to move an inch.

"So they don't think women can fight just because they aren't guys, huh? Oh, we'll just see about that," Xion seethed quietly, with her words turning into a devious chuckle near the end. She then leveled fierce look at Mulan and Mushu, both of which jumped upon realizing that her sights were set on them, and asked, "Just where is this 'mighty' Imperial army?"

The two Land of Dragons natives could only silently point in the direction that they needed to go, and Xion did not hesitate to begin marching in said direction with purpose. Realizing what she was likely planning, Ventus managed to summon up a little more courage and rushed towards her in the hopes of reasoning with the girl before she did something she should not. "Xion, just wait a minute," Ventus pleaded. "We can't just go waltzing in there and making demands to change things that we don't agree with! Besides, maybe it would be better for you to at least…"

"No," Xion angrily interrupted, making the Keyblade master flinch back a little. "I'm not going to just sit back and let someone else dictate what I can and can't do just because I'm a girl! If these guys think they can walk all over women like that, then they've got another thing coming! I can promise you that!"

With that vow made, Xion continued off in her heated march, leaving the others staring after her in both fear and a slight bit of awe. Ventus was about to try and stop her again when Roxas stepped forward and said, "Don't bother. Xion's one of those girls who doesn't like seeing women being put down in anyway because of some sexist attitude or any reason that's even remotely similar to that, right to the point where she'll likely smack the offender across the face so hard their head wouldn't just spin; it would roll right off and then back on again so that she could slap them a second time. Whatever she's planning, it's going to happen and its better if we just roll with it unless it has very extreme consequences."

No one was sure what to say in response to that, and they all ended up just nodding in response before they joined Roxas in following after Xion. Of course, Donald, Goofy, and Sora all made it a point to keep Roxas between them and Xion for the moment, being too scared to get any closer to the girl, while Ventus made a mental note to try and break Xion out of such thought processes, knowing that they would likely encounter other worlds that held similar views on men and women to this one. There was a good chance that she would likely end up getting into a lot of trouble on such worlds if she was not careful, but then again, he also figured that he should have warned his apprentices of this sort of thing a little sooner so that Xion would be a bit more prepared for this. It was too late to worry about that now though, so all he could really do was move forward with the others and hope for the best.

While she was following behind the team at a slightly slower pace, wanting to keep some distance between her and the other girl for the moment, Mulan was also watching Xion march off with a bit of awe. She would admit that part of her thought the younger girl was a bit crazy, but at the same time, the rest of her could not help but admire just how much braver and strong-willed that Xion appeared to be. It was pretty inspiring to say the least, but it did not make her any less worried for what may happen to Xion when she arrived at the camp.

---

By the time that the group had reached the camp, Xion's flames of anger had died down to the point where the others felt it was safe to approach her again, so long as they did not mention anything about what had set her off in the first place. Even so, no one was really sure what they could say right now, as all conversation about this world seemed like a touchy subject until she had completely gotten her frustration out of her system. Thankfully, it did not look like conversation would be too necessary in a few moments, because from the look of things, it was mealtime in the camp, judging by how the soldiers were lined up before a chef, and everyone was a bit hungry, so they quickly moved to join the line.

Halfway there, Roxas noticed that Mulan was not beside them, and looked back to see something extremely odd. "What in the world are you doing," the blonde asked.

Mulan had paused in her march towards the line, and somehow looked even sillier than she had a moment ago when she was walking. She had her knees together, shoulders back, chest puffed out, and basically looked incredibly awkward and strange to the point where she was getting a lot of odd stares from the people around them. "Um…trying to walk like a man," Mulan shrugged.

Roxas could not do anything other than lightly drop his head into one hand, unable to really think of anything to say to that, even with his suspicions that Mushu had something to do with this, and then said, "Yeah…I've never met a man who does that. So please don't do that again, like ever. Just walk like you normally would. People are staring at you in a bad way."

Hearing that people were staring at her weirdly made Mulan drop the "manly" pose she was holding and she quickly began walking like normal again, following Roxas to the line with the others. They had arrived just in time to see Sora suddenly get shoved back by a short man in red armor and one bad eye, who was grumbling, "'Bout time we got some grub."

"Hey, no cutting," Sora angrily told him.

"Get out," Donald snapped. He was ready to charge the guy until Xion suddenly stepped between them with her hand out, silently telling him and Sora to leave the guy to her.

"Hey buddy, didn't anyone ever teach you manners? You know, like 'lady's first,'" Xion questioned, sounding as innocent as she could at the moment, which was still pretty innocent sounding to everyone who was not Roxas.

That got the guy to turn around and face Xion for a good few minutes, honestly surprised to see that there was a girl in the camp, never mind a very young one. After a minute or two, he just snorted and said, "Hey, sorry sweetie, but this place is for the Imperial army. No women allowed, even if they are little girls."

"Oh no," Roxas muttered as he waved for the others to move back a little with his arms wide. "Shouldn't have said that."

"Really," Xion asked in an innocent tone that was most definitely fake. A minute later, she had dropped down and delivered a low, sweep kick that knocked the guy off his feet. Before the guy could attempt to stand up, Xion had already pounced and jabbed her elbow into his back before grabbing him by the head and stuffing his face into the dirt as hard as she could. She then lifted him up and whispered, "Then I guess you should run home to mommy before you get a boo-boo, shouldn't you?" Just to add further insult to injury, after she had stood up again, Xion then pointed out in a tone of voice that was too sugary sweet to be real, "By the way, I wouldn't be calling someone little when they're taller than you, sweetie."

Xion then spun around on her heel, determined to get back in line and feeling very satisfied with herself, when the man in red spat out some of the dirt he had just eaten and charged at her. He never reached her though, as Sora jumped in the way and pushed him back before he could even get close to Xion. "Leave my little sister alone, you jerk," Sora snapped. "Besides, last I checked, it wasn't very honorable to attack someone when their back is turned."

That really riled the man in red up, as he immediately jumped up again and slugged Sora aside. Seeing this prompted Donald to join the slugfest, and he immediately pounced the man in red with a short battle cry. "Back off," the man growled as he tried pushing Donald off, only to find that much easier said than done.

"No," Donald snapped as he pushed back, even going so far as to try and bite the guy's arm once. While the two continued to wrestle in the mud, Ven, Goofy, and Mulan all tried to look for an opening they could use to step in and break it up, but were having no success at all. Roxas was not helping the other three because he was sure that he was more likely to join Donald in beating the crap out of the guy after how he had tried to attack Xion.

The brawl was eventually broken up when two more soldiers intervened and pushed both Donald and his opponent aside. "Hey, a space in line," the first one, a skinny fellow in yellow cheered like he had not noticed what was going on.

"I wonder what they're serving for lunch today," the second soldier, who was much larger than all the rest of them and dressed in blue armor, thought aloud.

"Knuckle sandwiches," the red armored man growled before he charged the other two, with Donald hot on his trail. Barely more than a few minutes later, a full battle royale brawl had broken out between the three soldiers and Donald, but they were not alone in their fighting for long, as the three quickly started to gang up on the magician.

"That does it," Sora snapped, jumping back in to give Donald some help, and he made it a point to slug the skinny man across the face, easily bruising him when he struck before he jumped the short man in red, and pulled him away from Donald so he could pay him back for the punch that he delivered to the Keyblade wielder earlier.

It was at this point that Roxas had joined in as well, having charged before Goofy could stop him, and Ven then moved to stand in front of Xion so that she would not get any ideas about joining in on the slugfest as well. Not that she seemed to be all that inclined to, as Xion merely just stood there with a neutral look, either not caring or just waiting for the perfect chance for her to strike again. Eventually, Mulan could not take much more of watching this, and, wanting to do something to stop this, she instinctively yelled, "Please!"

All fighting came to a grinding halt as the combatants turned to face Mulan, with her new friends looking a little worried over the fact that she had used her real voice just now instead of her manly one. The three soldiers did not seem to notice though, because they were more focused on what she had said as opposed to the voice that had said it. "Please," the man in yellow questioned

"What a girl," the red armored one scoffed before he suddenly shivered a little for some unknown reason. He quickly looked around, trying to find the reason for his odd feeling of fear, and jumped a little when he noticed the cold glare that Xion was giving him from where she stood.

No one else seemed to notice though, as most of the attention was on Mulan, who quickly backtracked and switched to her man-voice, and said, "Uh…Knock it off!"

"Knock what off," the red armored man sarcastically asked.

"You punched me," Sora reminded him.

"Cutting in line," Donald added.

"Trying to attack Xion," Roxas growled.

None of them seemed to be too big of a deal to the three soldiers, as the skinny guy quickly proved when he laughed, "What a shrimp!"

"Wha—Who you callin' a shrimp, panda lips," Mushu angrily retorted, apparently thinking that the insult was directed at him and popping out of his hiding place in order to bite back. "I'm a bona fide guardian dragon!"

Ven and Mulan both quickly scrambled to hide the little dragon again before he was discovered, and could not help but sigh in relief when they somehow managed to succeed without anyone realizing it. "Look, we've all clearly gotten off on the wrong foot here," Ventus started trying to reason. "So how about we all calm down and just get back in line, okay?"

"Whose side are you on, Ven? I just got slugged, and Xion nearly was too after the guy had insulted her," Sora protested.

"Oh please," Xion scoffed, entering the conversation again, and pulling all attention onto her. "I wasn't going to get slugged. I just wanted to see if he was a man, and obviously he isn't."

"What'd you say," the red armored man growled.

"You heard me, Shorty," Xion easily shot back, feeling a bit of satisfaction at being able to call someone else "Shorty" for once. "A real man would've known when he was beat and then let it go. Not thrown a fit like a spoiled baby who didn't get his way."

"That's it! I don't care if you're a girl or not. I'm gonna beat you to a pulp," the short man growled. Clearly Xion had pressed all of his buttons, and considering the satisfied smirk on her face, that was what she was aiming for.

"Ha! I'd like to see you try, Bright Eyes," Xion mockingly laughed, steadily slipping into the beginnings of a battle stance. "Oops! Sorry. Guess that should be Bright Eye. Singular, not plural, and for those of you are more literally challenged, aka stupid, that means just one and not more than one."

"Get her Yao," the skinny guy yelled, feeling as though the girl's insult was directed at him and his other friend as much as it was Xion's impending opponent.

"Yeah, good luck with that. Sis has got this in the bag," Roxas cheered.

Before anyone could make a move to either engage the fight or stop the two from fighting, a new, commanding voice cut in, shouting, "Soldiers! Get back in line!"

"The Captain," the skinny guy quietly gasped before he and his friends all snapped to attention and fell into line.

Even though they had only just arrived, Sora and the others all quickly snapped into line as well at attention as well, while Xion was barely suppressing an excited grin, clearly showing that she had finally found her true prey. When the captain approached, the team noticed that he possessed a muscular build and had an air of strict seriousness that showed little room for any nonsense, while his attire consisted of white, black, and grey armor, while a red cape was worn around his shoulders and a sword hung from his belt. As he passed by Mulan and the team, the captain merely furrowed his brows a little, but it was not until he noticed Xion that he finally came to a halt and fixated his gaze on the line of troops. More specifically, on Xion herself.

"Excuse me, young lady, but women are not allowed here. You need to go back home," the captain informed Xion, keeping his voice calm and even as he spoke like there was nothing out of the ordinary happening here.

"Really," Xion asked in reply, clearly putting on an act. She then pointed to Yao and said, "Then you might want to tell that guy over there the same thing. The one in red armor, because from what I've seen, he's obviously not a man."

Yao quietly growled under his breath and would have turned to glare at Xion directly had his commanding officer not been standing right there. He was not about to try and retrieve the arrow from the top of the nearby pole while wearing weights again after so many failed attempts. Xion was much more interested in the captain's reaction, and from the look of things, he did not seem too bothered, yet. "This isn't a game, young lady. I'm ordering you to return home, unless you wish to bring dishonor to your family name."

"Yeah, I'm not too worried about that, considering I'm not from China," Xion easily shot back with a smug smile. She only just caught a glimpse of Ven, Sora, and Donald all signaling her to keep quiet, and knew that they thought she was about to reveal they were from another world, but she just shot them a small wink to say that she had it covered. "I'm from Twilight Town, a place that's very far away from this country, and that isn't still carrying such outdated views on the value of women."

"Then why are you here," the captain demanded, and Xion could hear a few small signs of his patience beginning to wear down a little.

"Simple. My people heard about the war going on here and wanted to send help. They sent me, my friends, and my master, the best fighters in our land, and people that may be your best hope and ending this war," Xion easily returned. She then paused for a moment before adding, "Of course, when I heard about how you view women here, I wanted to refuse, but there wasn't anyone else available, so I figured I might as well come any way, if for no other reason than to give you all a wake-up call that's clearly needed far more than I originally thought."

The captain did not say anything in reply at first, but did keep a stern gaze fixed on the girl that made Ven start to feel a little cautious. Whether this guy was the leader of an army or not, if the captain did anything to try and harm his apprentice, Ven was not going to let it slide. Just when he felt like he was going to have to step in, the captain finally broke the tension and asked, "Why wasn't I informed of your group being sent?"

"How should I know? I don't handle the formal, political stuff. I just go wherever help is needed and do what I can to help out," Xion shrugged, brushing off the question as casually as she could.

Seeing that the captain was likely about to snap, Ventus took his chance to step in and keep things from escalating too much. "Our nation is also one of what you could call nomadic warriors," Ventus stated. "We don't have any official allegiances to any one nation, but we do offer assistance to anyone in need, so long as they are in the right. From what we have seen and heard, it's clear that your side is in the right, so…here we are."

Shang studied the blonde for a minute, only nodding in response at first to show he was willing to accept that, before he moved on to another topic. "Just who are you two?"

"You know, it's rude to ask someone for their name before giving your own. Really, does anyone in this camp have any manners, or did you deem them unimportant the minute you put on those suits of armor," Xion smartly replied, making Ven flinch a little at her timing.

The captain appeared ready to snap now, but he slowly breathed in and out for a minute before saying, "I'm Captain Li Shang of China's Imperial army. And you are?"

"Master Ventus, from the Land of Departure in the Kingdom of…Disney," Ventus quickly introduced. Hey, it may not have been entirely true, but it was not a total lie either.

Shang nodded in return before turning to Xion, silently repeating his question to the girl, and this time, she did give him a reply. A short reply that was a little smart, but a reply all the same. "Xion. That's X-I-O-N. Got it memorized?"

Roxas was not sure if he should laugh or tiredly sigh at his sister's sudden need to emulate Axel, even to the point where she had tapped the side of her head like the redhead did whenever he shot off that catchphrase of his. Either way, he knew that now was probably not the best time for her to be doing that, and the captain made that point especially clear. "Yes, along with the fact that you need to leave."

"Oh, I'll leave…Assuming you can make me," Xion then dared, going so far as to step out of line deliver a fierce look to the captain. Sure, he might have been taller than her, but Xion was not about to let him intimidate her.

"Meaning what," Shang questioned, not backing down from her gaze in the slightest.

"Simple: I challenge you to a duel of swords, and if I win, I stay and carry out the job I was sent here for, without you interfering. If you win, I'll offer up my sincerest apologies and leave the camp, simple as that," Xion laid out with a confident grin.

Everyone was a little surprised by that, including the captain, who finally broke out of his stern visage to showcase his shock. None of the soldiers had been expecting this girl, who was much smaller than the captain and did not seem to be very much of a fighter, to suddenly challenge Shang to a fight, and while Roxas was expecting something like this, he did not think Xion was actually going to go through with it. No matter how upset Xion would get in the past, her sense of reason normally kept her from as far as to actually follow through on her crazier ideas. Clearly he had underestimated his sister's fury at learning what she had about this world, because that was the only reason why she would be going through with this idea now. It was for that reason that he kept quiet while the others tried to talk her out of the whole thing.

"Uh Xion, what are you doing," Ventus asked. "We can't just go around demanding fights with other people. Let alone, military leaders."

"Yeah, and besides, it's not like this is going to help with changing the way these people view…certain subjects," Sora added on, having to pause briefly before he brought up the topic that had sparked this from Xion in the first place. He did not want to make the girl turn her sights on him before she had settle things with Shang. "Really, this isn't worth it."

"Just get back in line," Mulan requested in her manly tone, but it turned out that she was the wrong person to say something, as Xion immediately rounded on her a minute later.

"Not gonna happen. Like I said before, I'm not going to let others tell me what I can or can't do just because I'm a girl. Even if I'm alone, I'll gladly stand up and fight for myself and my beliefs," Xion informed them, but mostly Mulan.

The Chinese woman could only stare at Xion with a bit of admiration in her eyes, realizing that unlike her, Xion was not afraid to stand tall and pretend to be something she was not in order to defend her honor. Thinking back to when Ven said that she was brave for taking her father's armor so that she could take his place, Mulan now felt that she had to disagree, because Xion definitely seemed like she was the braver one between the two of them right now. With that in mind, it was no wonder that Mulan found her eyes locked on to Xion even as the girl turned to stare down the captain once again.

"So, do you intend to accept my challenge, or are you too scared of the chance you might lose to a girl," Xion challenged, throwing in a quick jab just for good measure. It was probably not necessary at this point, but she did not seem to care all that much one way or the other.

Shang merely looked at the girl for a minute, apparently still stunned at the fact that she had challenged him at all. None of the other soldiers could blame him though, since it was not every day that someone came into the camp and suddenly challenged the captain out of the blue, let alone a girl from a far away land, but all the same, Shang was able to regain his composure and return to his strong, imposing stature once more as he gave his answer. "I accept." He then turned to move a short distance from the crowd, while everyone began to step out of line and huddle around the two in an attempt to watch. After reaching a satisfying position, Shang looked to Xion again and asked, "Will you need to borrow a sword? You don't seem to be carrying one of your own, and I'm sure one of us would be happy to lend you one of ours."

That comment had earned either scoffs or quiet chuckles from Yao and his two friends, while the team of adventurers just rolled their eyes at the three. Xion paid the peanut gallery no mind though, and simply held her left arm out a little as she replied, "That's very generous, but I'm good. I actually do have my own blade, and I trust it with my life."

With that said, Xion had instantly called Two Become One into her left hand, surprising the soldiers a little when she did. They had never seen someone just summon a weapon out of thin air before, and the stunned expressions on their faces proved to be very amusing to Ven, Sora, Roxas, Donald, and Goofy. Shang on the other hand merely quirked an eyebrow at how she had brought out the Keyblade, and seemed a bit curious about the weapon itself, but he put it aside and drew his own sword from its sheath to show that he was ready at any time. "Is there any particular rules or guidelines you wish to lay down for this duel," Shang questioned, allowing Xion to decide how the winner would be determined when he did.

Xion had to smile a little at that, happy to see that the man was courteous enough to make sure they both had an understanding of some ground rules before they began. "I'll keep it simple," Xion declared. "No killing allowed, for obvious reasons. Whoever yields first, is unable to continue, or remains pinned down for more than five seconds loses."

"And just who will give this five second count," Shang inquired.

"I'll do it, if no one minds," Ventus immediately volunteered, stepping forward before anyone could really protest.

"And how do we know you won't play favorites," Yao questioned, obviously not trusting Ven to be a fair judge.

"You have my word of honor that I will remain impartial in this matter," Ventus easily replied, and that seemed to do the trick for everyone.

Xion then glanced to Shang one last time, silently asking if he had any other questions or protests to give, and the captain nodded in return to show that he was ready. With nothing else to say or do, the two dropped into ready positions, awaiting a signal to begin, and after a few tense seconds where Ven held his hand high in the sky, the blonde waved his arm down, and shouted, "BEGIN!"

The minute Ven had given his signal, Xion had charged Shang as fast as she could, quickly jabbing several quick stabs at the captain the minute she was in range. Shang managed to either block or parry a good deal of Xion's attacks before he began to retaliate, and like that, the camp was filled with the sounds of metal clashing against metal several times over. As the fight went on, it became clear that Shang was a very gifted swordsman, and from what he could tell, Ven would wager that same could be said of Shang's skills in other forms of combat. It certainly made sense, given that Shang did not strike him as the type of leader who would sit back and let others fight for him, but as the fight went on, it began to look like all that skill and experience was not helping Shang at all. In point of fact, as the fight went on, everyone could see that Shang was actually having a bit of trouble blocking some of Xion's attacks, and that only became more so as the fight went on.

When Shang next swung his sword at her, Xion managed to pivot around both him and his attack, and landed a blow to the captain, allowing her to be the one that drew first blood in their match. At that point, Xion back flipped away to put some distance between them, and Shang made no move to stop her, having felt the need to catch his breath. Being so exhausted was surprising to Shang, but not quite as much as the fact that this girl had actually managed to land a hit on him. Sure, it may have been just a scratch, but it was still unexpected, and he figured he should take this as a punishment for underestimating her just because Xion was smaller than him. Of course, one could say that his reasons also included the fact that Xion was a girl, but Shang was not some childish punk that would use excuses like that. All the same, nothing could distract him from how bewildered he was that Xion was holding her ground against him to the point that he almost looked like an amateur, especially since his soldiers were just as confused as him.

"Hey, what's going on? How's this girl giving the captain such a hard time," Yao questioned.

"Yeah. No one's ever been able to do that, not even Chien Po," the skinny guy commented, pointing to the big guy in blue when he mentioned a soldier by name.

"Isn't it obvious," Ventus asked, drawing confused looks from everyone, including his friends and apprentices. The blonde then pointed to Xion and said, "Take a good look at Xion and tell me what seems different about her compared to Shang."

The three soldiers all studied the girl for a minute, each trying to figure out what it was about her that set her apart from the captain, aside from the obvious, but they just could not figure it out. They were lucky that the question was not limited to them, as Sora soon provided something of an answer. "Is it because Xion's using the Keyblade with her left hand," the spiky brunette asked.

"That's exactly the reason," Ventus confirmed, while the three soldiers finally took notice of the very fact Sora had mentioned. "In fact, Xion being left-handed is actually the very thing that would give her a huge advantage in many different sports; not just sword matches."

"How's that," Roxas asked.

"People who are left-handed often excel in sports because most of their opponents are used to going against players that are also right-handed," Ven stated, simply.

"Oh, I get it! Since Shang's used to fighting against people that are right-handed like him, Xion is able to completely throw him off his game just because she fights with a different dexterity than him," Sora grinned excitedly.

Donald let out a brief chuckle, indicating he just found an opening for teasing, and immediately pounced on it. "I didn't think you knew what the word dexterity meant, Sora."

"Yup. It seems like too big and complicated a word for you to really know, buddy," Goofy joined in with an easy-going smile.

"Like you should talk," Sora retorted with a smile as well, obviously pointing Goofy's regular trouble at remembering certain terms, and he quickly earned a small round of laughter from his friends.

Back in the impromptu arena, Shang had overheard a good deal of what Ven and the others said, and it was not long after that he realized that they were right. Having never fought against someone who's left-handed, Shang was definitely unprepared for the fight against Xion, a fact that he had only realized just now, and it seemed like the girl had noticed this, given the proud smile on her face as she held her blade at the ready with a short giggle. You would think that this would make Shang a little upset, but in truth, it did just the opposite. He had actually been hoping for something a little more challenging for a long time now, and now, one was standing right before him in the place of this girl from a far away land. It was so exciting that he could not help but break out of his stoic form and smile a little.

Xion actually caught a glimpse of the captain's smile, and for a minute, she thought that meant he was just toying with her, but after a second glance, she managed to pick up on some traces of enjoyment in his eyes, telling her that Shang was honestly enjoying their little spar. Seeing that actually left Xion a little surprised, but she quickly shook it off and smiled as well, happy to see that Shang was enjoying himself, likely almost as much as she was, but that did not mean she was going to back down and let him win. Apparently she was unintentionally communicating that with her eyes, as Shang's face became set with determination to win just a few seconds after she had her realization, and with that, the two simultaneously charged, ready to clash once again.

From that point on, both combatants were giving everything they had, whether they were striking at their opponent, deflecting an attack, parrying a blow, or even just dodging when they could not avoid the hit. At times, it looked like they were even doing everything they could to shrug off the pain from whatever injury they sustained, assuming they sustained an injury at all, and the whole thing was so incredible that nearly the entire camp had gone silent as they watched the match unfold. All the soldiers were on the edge of their seats, metaphorically or literally in anticipation of who would emerge victorious in this dance of blades, some even holding their breathes without realizing it, and from the look of things, it began to look as though Xion was starting to gather a bit of a following among the soldiers as well. Not that she really seemed to notice, because her attention was fully centered on Shang so long as she was looking for the moment when she would make her final move to take him down. Her analysis almost cost her though, as Shang managed to use that against her and made her fall of balance for a brief time after clashing his sword against her Keyblade with a particularly hard swing.

When Xion stumbled back as a result, Shang quickly rushed in to press the advantage, but the young girl did not falter in the slightest. Instead, she did something that surprised a good number of people. Reacting on pure instinct, she spun her Keyblade around in her hand with a flick of her fingers, and instantly snapped her Keyblade up to block Shang's sword, holding her blade in a reverse grip when she did. After pushing Shang back, Xion did nothing to return to the standard grip she had been using before, but instead, she continued to keep attacking with her Keyblade in a reverse grip, surprising everyone at how well she fought with such a style. Of course, out of all the crowd's reactions, Ven's seemed to attract the most attention.

"Yes, yes, yes, YES! FINALLY! One of my kids is using the same fighting style as me," Ventus had cheered as loudly as he could, almost like he was screaming it out to the highest of high heavens, and drawing looks from everyone around him as he started to break out into a happy dance. It took a few minutes before he finally realized he was getting a lot of looks, and he quickly turned away from the soldiers with an embarrassed smile. No sooner had he done that though that he realized that Sora and Roxas were both giving him looks of their own that indicated that they had taken a little bit offense at his reaction to Xion using his preferred fighting style, and Ven was now having to turn his gaze every which way to avoid both sets of stares, only to find very little sanctuary in any direction. That did not stop his smile though.

With the added turn of Xion fighting with a reverse grip, coupled with her dexterity, Shang had found himself without many advantages, and soon enough, he was dropping down into the dirt with Xion's Keyblade held at his neck. Not only that, but Xion's final blow had also made him lose his grip on his own sword, which Xion then caught and then spun around so that she was holding that at his throat as well. For a few minutes, everyone could only stare in silence, wondering what the girl would do. The soldiers were all surprised when they saw Xion spin the sword around and hold it out to Shang, handle first, in a silent offer for him to take it back, which Shang slowly did. Not that it seemed like he was going to be able to do too much one way or the other, because it was clear as day that they girl had him beaten, and he was man enough to admit.

"I yield," Shang declared, just to make it official, and with that, everyone seemed to break out in applause, soldiers and world adventurers alike.

"That little dame's good," Yao praised.

"Yeah, I'll say. Not just anyone can take the captain on and win, you know," the skinny soldier nodded in agreement.

"She must have had a really good teacher," Chien Po stated.

"She does, but I haven't really taught her too much yet. A lot of what you just saw was things she had learned all on her own," Ventus revealed, surprising the soldiers a little.

"Doesn't mean that you didn't teach her anything though," Roxas pointed out.

"Yeah. Xion wouldn't have even known that she was left-handed without your help, Ven," Sora reminded him.

"That's our Xion," Goofy applauded, apparently too excited about the victory to really pay too much attention, and Donald did not seem to be much better as he just hooped and hollered happily at the outcome.

As for the two combatants themselves, Xion had happily helped Shang back onto his feet, at least as much as she could, given that the captain was still taller and bigger than her, not to mention heavier, but Shang appreciated the gesture all the same, a fact that showed in the way he smiled while holstering his sword. "As agreed, you can stay. You're not going to be part of the Imperial army though," Shang informed Xion. Before the girl could give any kind of retort, the captain then finished, "However, I will enjoy having you with us as an ally. And if you wouldn't mind, I would like to have another spar with you sometime."

That had caught Xion off guard, because she had not expected that request at all. "Are you sure about that," she questioned in total honesty.

"Of course," Shang nodded. "After all, some of our enemies may be left-handed as well, so what better way to prepare for that than by sparing with someone on my side who is left-handed as well?"

Xion could only give a slightly cocky grin before shaking hands with the captain and saying, "You've got a deal, Captain Shang."

With the fight settled, Shang ordered the crowd to break up and get back into line or to whatever they were doing before, and when she rejoined her friends, Xion found herself bombarded with hugs and friendly pats on the back or shoulder in celebration of her victory. "You rule, Xion," Sora told her happily.

"Naturally," Xion smirked like it should have been obvious.

"But how come you didn't use any magic during the fight? You would've had him way sooner if you did," Donald questioned.

"I said that I wanted to have a sword fight, and that was exactly what I intended to keep it as. Besides, someone most likely would've accused me of cheating if I started shooting lighting, fire, or ice at him," Xion reminded the magician.

"Either way, I never doubted that you had it in the bag right from the start," Roxas informed his sister, earning him another smile from the girl.

"Indeed you did," Ven told her. He then turned a little more serious as he stated, "But don't think that means I'm okay with the whole thing, or that it means I'm going to be okay with you going around thinking you can pull stunts like that in other places that hold similar beliefs to this country."

Xion knew that when Ventus said "country" he really meant "world," but that did not detract from his point. She knew that her actions were probably a little out of line and may or may not have nearly endangered her and her friends and their mission if they backfired on her, so she did feel a little bad about the whole thing. That did not mean she would not have done it all over again if she had to though, but she could still see that Ventus had reason to be concerned, so she figured she should at least give him some kind of reassurance for his worries. "I can only promise to try my best in that regard," she finally stated.

"Ah-ah! No, no, no. Do or do not. There is no try," Ventus countered.

"Huh," was the most intelligent reply either that Roxas or Xion could give him.

"What's that supposed to mean? How can we do something if we don't even try," Roxas questioned in full.

"He has no idea," Sora answered for Ven before the blonde master could. "He's just saying it because Master Aqua and his teacher used to say it to him a lot, so he figures it means something important."

"Hey you! Who said that you could answer for me," Ventus teased as he playfully ruffled Sora's hair for his smart mouth. "And what makes you think I haven't figured out what it means while you were sleeping?"

"So then what does it mean," Sora challenged with a knowing smirk. Roxas and Xion both looked to Ventus, just as eager to hear his answer, but only for the sake of curiosity, unlike Sora.

"Well, here's what I figured it means," Ventus started to explain. "If you tell yourself that you're only trying at something, then you're not giving it everything you can, and you won't be able to succeed if that's the case. So, you can either do it and fail, or succeed, or don't do it at all, and never know what the result will be one way or the other. At least, that's what I figured it means. Whatever you guys think it means is entirely up to you. Doesn't mean that I'm entirely wrong in my interpretation though."

While the three apprentices all gave understanding nods in reply to the blonde master's wisdom, along with some humorous smiles at the end, Mulan seemed to be thinking over Ven's words very carefully, wondering if she could apply something similar to herself. True, she had come here so that she could save her father's life, but she was still really nervous about actually going into battle. She had never once tried to really fight in her life, at least not in the sense that she would be expected to while out here, and she was not sure if she would be able to do too well. Yes, she was determined to try her best, but would that really be enough if she was not completely committed to this course of action. Her thinking on the matter was brought to a screeching halt when she noticed something forming in the shadows of the camp, and that same thing startled both her and several of the soldiers when it suddenly popped out, along with several other creatures like it.

"Uh guys…what are those things," Mulan asked as she haphazardly drew her sword along with some of the other soldiers.

"Heartless," Sora, Roxas, and Xion all exclaimed upon seeing the Shadows rising out of the ground, while a few other unfamiliar Heartless materialized close by.

"Everyone get clear! We'll handle these things," Ventus shouted to the soldiers while he and his apprentices readied their Keyblades for battle, while Donald and Goofy summoned out their own weapons.

"Oh yeah? I don't think so," the skinny soldier in yellow armor scoffed while Yao just huffed angrily and Chien Po turned his own glare on the dwellers of darkness. Mulan held a similarly determined look on her face that said she was going to stand and fight, though it was dotted with concern as well, and as such, Ven just sighed, feeling that they did not have the time to argue about this.

"All right, fine, but be careful. You don't know these creatures like we do," Ven cautioned the three soldiers and Mulan.

The three soldiers all nodded in response and quickly drew their own swords as they set to work trying to force the Heartless back, while Sora glanced at Mulan and said, "Ping, I hope you're ready."

"That makes two of us," Mulan admitted before she tried to slash at a Shadow with her sword. She was not able to do anything though, as her swing ended up being very sloppy and only grazed the Shadow, egging it into attacking her.

Seeing the Heartless lunge at her made Mulan jump back in fright, but thankfully, Goofy came to the rescue by tossing his shield through the dark creature and easily destroyed it. Upon retrieving his shield, Goofy quickly turned and bashed another Shadow away so that it was in perfect position to be blasted by the fireball that Donald had conjured up, and the duck was soon returning the favor when he blew another Shadow into Goofy's range of attack, allowing the knight to finish it off with a mighty swing of his shield. The two then helped Mulan to try and attack a wizard-looking Heartless that had the Heartless emblem on piece of parchment that stuck to its forehead, but they were all diving aside when it suddenly swung out at them with its vicious claws. Before they could try and retaliate, the new Heartless dove in with a spinning attack that knocked Mulan into Goofy before she had even realized what was happening.

"Hey, what's the deal with this Heartless," Donald questioned as he attempted to zero in on the enemy for a good shot. He was not having too much look though with how it was hovering around the area.

"I don't know. I've never seen it before," Goofy admitted.

Sora had just slashed through three more Shadows when he heard Goofy's statement, and turned to better study the Heartless that his friends were dealing with. Like Donald and Goofy, Sora did not recognize it either, but thankfully, he had a feeling that someone could give them a rundown, and that person was close at hand for Sora. "Hey Jiminy, is there anything in your journal about this new Heartless," Sora asked as he threw a glance over his shoulder towards his hood, where he knew that the cricket was hiding out.

"That and more," Jiminy reported as he jumped out from his hiding spot and onto Sora's shoulder, but he quickly found himself hanging onto some of Sora's hair when the teen had to roll clear of the claws of another one of the new Heartless. "While we were meeting with Master Yen Sid, I picked up some new notes for my journal so that we would have details on all the Heartless, be it ones we've met before or ones that we haven't."

"Well how about we just stick with information on the one we're already asking about," Roxas suggested while he drove off some more Shadows with his two Keyblades.

Jiminy just nodded in reply before he began flipping through the pages of his new journal, having felt that it would be better to chronicle this new quest in a separate book from the old one due to the message inside of it, until he found the page he was looking for. "It's called a Nightwalker, one of the Heartless that can only be found in a specific world, which seems to be this one," Jiminy reported. "Those claws aren't its only method of attack though, as they can also float around in midair or ghost-fire for long range attacks."

"Well that's not going to help it too much," Xion stated as she turned to let loose a bolt of lightning on the Nightwalker that was attacking Donald, Goofy, and Mulan. She then spun around to blast the one that was hounding Sora.

Ventus had to agree with Xion, as he soon proved by bringing down another three Nightwalkers with a Wind Raid, and before his Keyblade had even returned to his hand, he used off-hand to cast a quick blast of Aerora that he used to launch himself into the air, triggering his Flowmotion abilities, and allowing him to catapult down for a shockwave attack once Guardian Wind was in his hand again. Seeing that there were still Heartless materializing into the camp, with some soldiers quickly being cornered despite the efforts of Shang and the other three, Ven looked to Sora and Xion and shouted, "Guys, time to turn things up and bust out your new abilities."

Knowing what Ven was referring to, Sora and Xion exchanged a quick nod and jumped back a bit so that they could summon out their Drive Forms. At least, that had been the plan, until they remembered one little detail they had not really thought about until now. "Uh…How do we activate the Drive Forms," Sora asked, earning him disbelieving looks from Roxas, Ventus, Donald, and Goofy. "What? Those fairies didn't exactly give us an instruction manual on how the things work. They just gave us our first forms and told us that they had special powers."

Ventus would have smacked himself in the head for not realizing that sooner if they were not in the middle of the fight, but he still did so mentally while kicking back another Nightwalker, which Roxas quickly cut down with Oblivion, and shouted, "Just think about the form you want, shout out the name if you feel like you have to, and shout 'Drive on!'"

"Seriously? That sounds like something you would hear in some kid's superhero show or something," Xion stated.

"Do you have a better idea," Ventus asked as he cut down another Shadow before tossing Guardian Wind through a few more Heartless that were closing in on some soldiers. "We don't exactly have much room to safely use Command Styles or Shotlocks, so it's either the Drive Forms or praying that we can start moving a little faster."

As he was saying that Mulan had stumbled her way through the fight and managed to at least destroy a few Shadows, but still seemed to be struggling to keep up with the others. At that point, some of them were beginning to think it was more due to her armor than anything else, which was likely very heavy since it was her father's, but what they found more important was what she had to say at the moment when she turned to the two Keybearers that Ven was addressing. "I'm not sure what any of that means, but if you have a way to end this a little faster, I'm all for it," the disguised woman informed her friends.

Xion and Sora shared one more look before they shrugged and then closed their eyes, pictured their Drive Forms and the powers they possessed in their minds for a minute, and after snapping their eyes open again, they simultaneously shouted, "Valor Form, drive on!"

One explosion of light later, and Sora's clothes had transformed into the red and white color scheme, with Xion's turning to their gold and emerald green state, and the appearance of their second Keyblades in their off-hands served to signify that they had in fact successfully transformed into their Drive Forms. With their transformations complete, Sora and Xion both went to work slashing both of their Keyblades through the Heartless as fast as they could, which was a pretty impressive speed to say the least, and for a moment, Roxas almost thought that the two were able to fight as naturally as he could with two blades, but he could still see some points that they would need to work on. Ventus could see them too, but he put a little more focus on the fight at the moment. What really served as interesting was that Xion was now fighting with both Two Become One and Midnight Roar in a reverse grip, which made Ventus smile rather widely, but he still somehow managed to focus on the fight at hand for the moment.

Thanks to the advantage of Sora and Xion both using their Valor Form the team was able to whittle the Heartless down to very small numbers, and Sora figured he should finish things up as quick and painlessly as possible, so he immediately aimed Star Seeker at the nearest Heartless and attempted to fire off a blast of magic. Unfortunately, nothing happened, and no matter how hard he tried, it did not seem like any spell he called upon was not going to work either. "Hey, what's going on," Sora demanded as he jumped high over a Nightwalker that tried to slash at him, barely even noticing that he had reached a height he could normally only achieve when he was using High Jump as he did. "I thought my magic was getting closer to being back to what it was before, so why can't I use any of my spells?"

"It's not just you, Sora," Xion called out, drawing the boy to turn and see that the girl in question was also trying to cast a spell without any success as she avoided and parried attacks from the monsters. "I'm not getting anything either."

Xion's attempts at trying to cast magic had ended up leaving her vulnerable to some of the last Shadows, but thankfully, Roxas was able to step in and destroy those very Shadows before they had even gotten within a hair's breadth of his sister. "You know, just a thought, but maybe next time we get some new powers, we test out the limitations and strengths they give us before using them in a fight," Roxas suggested as he dismissed his two Keyblades.

"Yeah, we probably should have done that a little sooner, now that I think about it," Ventus agreed as he walked over to the twins, with Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Mulan joining them once they were sure that the Heartless were gone.

"Regardless of whatever hiccups you may have dealt with, it seems that we still owe you some thanks," Shang's voice cut in, turning the group's attention to him as he approached. "You all fought very bravely to defend my men and this camp from those creatures, which I can only assume is another part of the reason why you came here."

"Yes, you could say that," Ventus confirmed. "We heard that your enemies may have aligned with those creatures, known as the Heartless, and since we possess some of the only weapons or abilities capable of destroying them, we felt it necessary to step in."

"I see," Shang nodded. He then looked around at the group for another minute before noting, "As I recall, I don't think I ever got the names of the rest of your group."

"My name's Roxas, Xion's twin brother," Roxas stated.

"I'm Sora, Ven's first apprentice, and Roxas and Xion's older brother, both as a sibling disciple and as a regular sibling," the wielder of Kingdom Key introduced himself.

"Donald," the magician added.

"Goofy," the knight finished with a nod.

Shang just nodded in return before saying, "You are all more than welcome in my troop. Your battle skills are very encouraging, and just as impressive as Xion's from what I've seen."

"Trust me, Captain, you've only barely seen a taste of what we can do in a fight," Ventus promised.

"Well then I'm looking forward to seeing what else you can do," Shang determined.

At that point, Mulan felt it was time that she introduced herself to the captain, at least by her male alibi, and quickly squared her shoulders so in an attempt to make herself appear a little more masculine, much to Xion's slight ire. "I am the son of Fa Zhou…"

"You should return home," Shang interrupted before Mulan could even give her name. Clearly, he had been far less impressed with her abilities in battle if the small scowl on his face was any indication.

"B-but…That would dishonor my family," Mulan protested.

"You'd rather dishonor my troops," Shang questioned.

"Don't make me…" Mulan started to beg, apparently not really thinking before she spoke, and that gained her an angry look from Shang that made her flinch back a little in response.

"Look, we know that…Ping is a little rough around the edges, but he can get better," Xion stated in her friend's defense, though she made it a point to put extra emphasis on Mulan's alias just to show she was still unhappy with the charade that she was putting on, even if it was for good reasons.

"Yeah, if Ping trains hard and does his best, he'll get stronger in no time," Sora said in agreement.

"I don't have time to train up a new soldier so that they're fit for duty. My troops and I need to move out to the front lines in a few days, and I need everyone at their best," Shang stated.

"Fine, then we'll train him," Ventus promised, surprising Shang and his friends. "Hey, I'm already training these three kids here to become masters like me, so it shouldn't be too much trouble for all of us to train Ping as well. Just give us a week and he'll be as good if not better than any one of the soldiers in this camp."

"I can't give you that. We move out in five days," Shang revealed, but he could also see that the bearded blonde was not backing down. He then hummed to himself in thought before he made a counter offer. "Two days."

"Four. Bare minimum for both us and Ping to be decently ready for action," Xion retaliated in kind. Apparently, she was feeling rather brave after her victory against the captain.

"Three, and not a minute more, while taking on any assignment I give to you and your group," Shang countermanded in kind.

"Done, but only if Ping can accompany us on those assignments. No better training than in field experience," Ventus pushed back.

"I have no problem with that," Shang agreed, and with that, the Keyblade master and the army captain sealed the deal with a handshake and a smile on each of their faces. Not that any of that made Mulan feel much better, as she was now a lot more nervous than before.

---

"Well, I think we can all agree that was a lot of drama we could have lived without, for the most part," Ventus sighed a few hours later once the team had assembled a short ways out from the camp.

After they had made their deal with Shang, the captain had informed them that his men's mission was to ambush the Hun army, led by Shan-Yu as they made their way through the mountain pass in an attempt to reach the Imperial City. While Donald thought that they would be taking point on said ambush, Shang had a different idea: he wanted the team be the advance party that would scout the mountain path ahead for the rest of the troops. It seemed like a pretty simple assignment, but the team knew better since the Heartless were most likely waiting along the path that Shang intended for his troops to take in order to reach the position they needed to be in for said ambush. Not that they were too worried, but they did promise to train Mulan on how to fight properly while they were doing that, so there was that to deal with as well. Of course, there were other matters that they felt that they needed to be concerned about as well.

Sora was the one who actually brought up one such concern, feeling that it was probably one of the more important ones. "What I don't get is why Xion and I couldn't seem to use any of our magic while we were powered up earlier," the spiky brunette had admitted with his hands resting behind his head. "I mean, we're both really good with magic, yet every time we tried casting a spell, nothing happened."

"Yeah, it was almost like all of my magic had been blocked off or something," Xion revealed with a wondering look.

"Well no one said that your Drive Forms did not come with some drawbacks. Maybe being unable to use magic is just one of them," Roxas offered up in explanation.

"And it may not stop there, either," Ventus pointed out. Seeing that he had gained the attention of all three of his apprentices, Ventus went on to add, "Think about it. The ability to use magic already means that it becomes that much harder for you two to summon out the three common Command Styles, but who's to say that you're even able to use those abilities at all? Not only that, but what if there's a chance that you won't be able to use Shotlocks either?"

Sora could certainly see Ven's point as he said that, and immediately decided that he should try and experiment a little during this on-the-go training session to see about all of that for himself, but Xion did not really seemed to bothered by it. "Well, I'm not even able to use any of those yet, so I think I can manage for a little while," the girl shrugged indifferently.

"That doesn't mean that you're not still going to learn how to, kid," Ventus pointed out. "Especially since I'm going to be teaching you and Roxas how to use the common Command Styles while we're carrying out this assignment."

Hearing that definitely made Xion change her tune and start grinning excitedly along with Roxas, but they were all soon reminded that they were not the only ones there at the moment. "You guys do remember that Ping's going to need some training from you too, right? I mean, you did kinda make that deal with Captain Grumpy saying that you would be doing just that," Mushu interrupted.

"We didn't forget anything," Donald reassured the dragon.

"Yep! Me and Donald will be handling a lot of Ping's training while Ven's training Sora and the others," Goofy promised.

The group was mainly referring to Mulan by her alias just to be on the safe side, because while they were a ways out from the camp, there was still no way to be sure that one of the troops would not wander out there and overhear what they were saying to one another. Mulan really appreciated their caution in this regard, but that did not make any less concerned for her new friends. "Are you sure it won't be too much trouble for you to train me," she asked. "I mean, you all clearly have some things that you need to work on, yourselves. I don't want to be the cause of any trouble."

"Hey, don't worry, you won't be," Sora reassured her. "Besides, we're all going to pitch in and help at different times."

"Glad you feel that way, Sora, because you're going to help Donald and Goofy out with training Ping first," Ventus informed him.

"Huh?! But I thought you would want me to help with training Roxas and Xion on the Command Styles," Sora protested. He did not necessarily have a problem with training Mulan on how to fight, but he did feel like he was being a little left out like this.

"I know, Sora, but Mulan's training is just as important as theirs. Besides, do you really want to leave all of her training to those two," Ventus asked, indicated Donald and Goofy when he posed the question.

Sora had to admit that Ven did have a point in that regard. While Donald and Goofy were great training partners, they were not really the best teachers either. Between Donald's temper and Goofy's…well, goofiness, there was a chance that Mulan might not be able to gain too much improvement if she was left to train with just them, so Sora had to nod in agreement with his master, even if he was not entirely satisfied with the fact. Apparently his displeasure was more transparent than he realized, because Ven was soon placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and said, "Don't worry, once at least one of these two have gotten a feel for the three Command Styles, that one will switch out with you so that I can start you on the next level of your Command Style training."

"You mean…" Sora trailed off at the end partly due to his excitement, and partly because he wanted to hear it from Ven's mouth.

"That's right, kiddo. I'd say it's finally time," Ventus confirmed with a smile, and Sora's excitement only grew even more when Ven finally said the words themselves. "It's time for you to beginning training in Tier Two Command Styles."

---

Aqua's Journal Entry 2:

I can hardly believe we actually made it. Well, I made it, but only because Mickey insisted on pushing me ahead of him, and now, I'm inside of Castle Oblivion with Riku as he makes his way up through the basement levels. Honestly, I had not realized how large I made this place, or just how white I had made the interior. I know I wasn't really too focused on interior decorating when I remade the castle at the time, but looking back, maybe I could have added a few more colors besides just mostly white with the occasional pale tan. I'm surprised that Riku has managed to keep track of which floor was which as he climbed up through here.

Speaking of Riku, it's only just now that I've really managed to judge just how large the stain of darkness in his heart is. I'm actually a little surprised I never realized it until now, but then again, when we last met, we were still in the Realm of Darkness, so that might have had something to do with it. It almost reminds me of some of the last times I saw Terra before…well, before everything. Still, the fact that the darkness inside Riku's heart is so great could be considered a testament to how powerful Xehanort's Heartless truly was. Even when it's just his heart separated from his body, the man brings so much pain into so many people's lives. I can't help but wonder how you could've remained friends with Xehanort for so many years after you realized what he had been doing, Master Eraqus, but suppose seeing him bring Ven to us while claiming he did not wish to "risk making another foolish mistake" might have had something to do with it. I'm glad that he did, since it meant that I never would've met Ven otherwise, but still…

What really worries me right now though is how these…people, for lack of a better word, found a way past the castle's defenses. True, it's not all of the defenses, or even the most important ones (Thank Kingdom Hearts those are still intact), but the fact that they can find a way to navigate deeper into the castle without being lost within its halls forever is still concerning. I will admit the method in which they did so is actually pretty impressive. Using cards created from a person's memory of a world to create an illusion of said world to better navigate through the labyrinths in each room is ingenious, and it actually has me wondering just how they stumbled upon that secret. I didn't even know that was possible. Maybe it was something that Master Eraqus's influence had worked in. I can't really be sure. Still, there's something really odd about the people overseeing the castle and claiming to be its masters. I may not know what it is, but I do know one thing: they are not the masters of Castle Oblivion, and with Riku's help, I'll be sure to show them that soon enough. I just have to hope the darkness in his heart does not become too much of a problem before then.

---

AN: Okay, so confession time, this chapter was originally going to cover the entirety of the Land of Dragons, but it got to be a little too long, so I had to end it on a cliff-hanger, but I'd like to think that it turned out pretty well, regardless of that fact.

Ven: I just can't believe that you went the route that you did with the story here. Especially with Xion.

AN: Well it shouldn't be that surprising. Even though she's sometimes seen as someone who's a little shy, Xion does still have that same fire in her that's inside of Kairi, especially since...

Xion: Don't even finish that sentence if it in anyway makes me sound like Kairi and/or Sora's daughter.

AN: Sheesh. Get over it already. Anyways, the idea for Xion taking that little stand of hers was actually partially inspired by another writer's fanfiction, a crossover between Sword Art Online and Kingdom Hearts that I read a little while back, and I felt that a similar scenario would be fitting for Xion in this story as well, so I couldn't help but run with it. Huge shout-out to "Jacob Pendra-Huth" for providing that little bit of inspiration. Looking forward to seeing where you take that story series, my man.

Also, now we finally have the answer on why Xion was always feeling awkward with her fighting style. The reason being that she was left-handed all along without even knowing it. That idea actually came to me after seeing that one scene between Roxas and Xion in Twilight Town. You know, the one where Xion points her Keyblade at him before getting into a fight with Axel? I'm sure you all probably noticed it, but Xion had definitely summoned the Keyblade into her left hand, and did not immediately switch it over to her other hand right away before she got into the fight. Ever since I saw that, I thought that it would be pretty cool if that was a sign of Xion becoming her own person: simply because she was left-handed whereas Sora, Roxas, and Kairi are all right-handed, so I found a way to work it in here, and I fully intend to do the same for some of my other Kingdom Hearts stories as well. I just really like the idea of having a character who's left-handed in this story, and Xion's the perfect choice for that, mostly because she's the only one who's ever really shown the potential of being as such.

Speaking of new developments in Xion, now we've seen a little hint on how having Ven's heart as part of her own has affected her, because look at that, Xion's using a reverse grip now too, just like our favorite blonde Keyblade Master. Part of that is because I thought it would be cool to have another person using that style, and it would help Ven to better connect with Xion over the course of her training. The other reason, well I just thought it would be nice to have someone else use Ven's fighting style. While it is cool that Ven's the only one that fights with a reverse grip, it also seems rather lonely as well.

And finally, the matter of Aqua's latest journal entry. Yeah, not much to say here, but I'll try anyway. So basically, it's saying that Aqua ended up getting to Castle Oblivion before Mickey, because they found some kind of short-cut that more than likely could only be used by one of them, and Mickey felt that Aqua should be that one. So, she's now getting an up-close look at how Riku's trials in controlling his darkness goes, while also getting a firsthand look at how the Organization infiltrated the castle. The rest is basically just her thoughts on how the cards are being used to open up the rooms and make getting through the place a little more manageable. At least, that's how I figure that they work in this scenario. The cards aren't being used to dictate battle abilities in this series, just helping with opening up the labyrinth so that our heroes could better navigate it.

Now before we get on to the next chapter's preview, let's wrap up with those review answers shall we?

To start off, let's address the questions posed by "The Keeper of the Worlds". Your questions about Xion having her own breed of Nobodies to control is an interesting concept, but at the moment, I can't really say for sure if I'll run with it. You never know though. That may very well change later on down the line, because it does have potential, like you said. As for Ven's interactions with Marluxia, Larxene, and all the others that apparently have legacy ties to the Keyblade War, well, I'm not entirely sure that Ven really remembers that time too well, and I got the impression that some of them didn't either. So for now, I'm not going to have too much of a really personal reaction between Ven and those characters, as there isn't really much of a plan for them as of this time beyond what we saw of everyone in the canon. Though, I can't really say that I really see the point of having that Chirithy spirit suddenly showing up out of nowhere like that, or that other dude who helped Sora take down the Heartless storm like he did. If I do decide to spin it around somehow, you'll know when it happens.

Moving right along, let's go on to "Ronin Warriors Fanatic". I'm not really sure if it would be all that possible to give Scar a Nobody, especially since the Organization didn't have any kind of presence in the Pride Lands beyond the Heartless being there. So there's very little chance of that happening, no matter how interesting it might be. Sorry.

To "Dragon Rider 66", yeah, your comparison of Roxas and the Samurais to Captain Rex and the 501st makes perfect sense, no worries there. As for your questions on how I plan to adapt certain game mechanics that we gained in KH3, I don't want to give away too much just yet, but I guess it couldn't hurt to at least tell you all how I plan to explain the ability to change between different Keyblades in the midst of a fight. In the simplest of ways to put it, the reason is because one of the heroes figures out that they can in fact attach more than one Keychain onto the Keyblade at a time, and after that, it's all a matter of just thinking about which Keyblade's power they want to use in the moment. The Keychain in the middle would be their default that they would summon from the start, but if they felt like they needed a different blade, they would put a little extra concentration into it when they first call out their Keyblade. (An example would be that if Sora had {going from left to right} Shooting Star, Kingdom Key, and Favorite Deputy attached, the Keyblade he would summon by default would be the ever iconic Kingdom Key. If he ever switched that order around, then the Keychain that was in the middle would become the new default). Hope I made that clear for you, but the rest of the details regarding how I work in and explain the KH3 mechanics you will have to wait for. No more spoilers.

Rolling it on over to our old pal "Spiderfan626", yeah, I did in fact unlock the secret ending that you are referring to. In fact, I made it a point to make sure that I did everything necessary to unlock it the minute I heard about it. I'm also right there with you and everyone else who's hoping we won't have to wait nearly as long as we did for KH3 before we finally see KH4, or really just another Kingdom Hearts game in general, and considering that we did have Kairi as a supporting character for one battle in KH3, once again, I'd like to believe that next game we will get to play as Kairi as well. Fingers crossed for that. I also agree that it sucks that Sora and Kairi didn't kiss, but hey, at least they finally shared a paopou fruit, so that's something, right? Also, there's a good chance I may actually try to work that moment you suggested into the Kingdom Marvels series, don't worry about that. But it might not be against Xehanort himself, I'm sorry to say. Doesn't mean that we can't still do it to Xehanort here.

Ven: Hey, I've gotta ask, is Xehanort still tied up in that one room that you left him in so that Sora and Kairi could beat the crap out of him?

AN: Yep. I think the two actually went out for a little bit so that they could have a breather. Not much point in them beating up a corpse you know, but I think it was more for their benefit than his. I heard them mention something about a dinner at some fancy restaurant, or the bistro in Twilight Town.

Xion: Oooh! Sora knows how to treat his lady!

AN: Like that was ever in question? Anyway, to "CT7567Rules", yeah, Star Wars will be a world we see in this story, and Rex will show up, you don't have to worry about that. Yeah, I know I've just gotten a lot people really excited now, but really, you probably should've figured this would happen since we had a Star Wars summon in the previous story. And to answer your question, I've got Kingdom Hearts 3 for the PS4.

Rolling it over to the guest reviewer known as "UNKNOWN", Kairi will in fact be joining the Avengers during what you could call the events of the Kingdom Marvels version of KH2, and you'll see that there's actually a huge reason behind that when we reach that point in the series. Also, good guess on who the possible Power Ranger summon could be, and yeah, he will have that very morpher if he shows up.

Oh, and to "Twisted Pxl", at the moment, there is no real plans on going back to Deep Jungle, I'm sorry to say. There just doesn't seem to be too many places that it could be worked in.

Now to "Monkey D. Conan"'s review for the last chapter, Sora's not actually going to become Xion's official teacher. It was really just a way to reference how far he's come up to this point, even though he's regressed like you guessed. Aside from Flowmotion, Aqua and Ven won't be using any KH3 abilities. In fact none of the characters will until we reach this series' version of KH3.

"Anonymaton", I'm going to try and work in as many of Roxas's in-game abilities so that he can use either them or a version of them in this series, and at this time, I'm reserving a great deal of judgment on my theories for what may unfold in KH4 until we have a few more clues than what we saw in the epilogue and secret ending scenes.

To the "Guest" of 2/18/2019, who asked about Ven's new appearance for drawing purposes, in my mind, while Ven is now more buff, in my mind, I've pictured him having something of a runner's or swimmer's build, I guess you could say. Like he's not overly buffed or bulky, or at least not to the same extent of extra muscle as Terra, but he definitely has gained some extra muscle. So I guess lean would be a pretty accurate description. Maybe slightly cut and toned as well.

To "theIrishWriter", I'm only going to answer your last question since I'm assuming you've probably gone back and reread the previous story by now to answer that other one. Sora's mainly introducing Roxas and Xion as his siblings as a way to cover their true identities, but I guess you could say that he considers them as his actual siblings as well. Kinda like how Peter Parker views Ben Riley, the Scarlet Spider, as his brother.

Moving back to guest reviews, namely the "Guest" of 2/18/2019 who asked about Ven, Aqua, and Terra's age, I tried looking it up, and the closest thing I found was something that said that by BBS, Terra was 20, Aqua was 18, and Ven was 16, if I remember right.

To the guest reviewer "Adam grimes", assuming that what you posted was a compliment (and believe me, I am banking very highly on the idea that it is), thanks a bunch!

Rolling it over to the guest review "CG", very interesting choice of name, btw, your suggestion/request has definitely helped give me a few good ideas, especially after reading through your reasoning for it, so I would say that the chances of it happening are now very high, at least as far as the final battle against Xehanort goes. As far as the various fights against the real Organization XIII goes, all I can do is promise to do my best in that regard, but I'm sure that with what I have in mind, you'll all find it very enjoyable.

Now, to round it out with one of the longest guest reviews I can ever remembering getting, from "Arthogawa". First off, let me just say, that idea you proposed on Ansem-Riku getting in a surprise blitz that Sora isn't able to dodge or a similar instance...is brilliant! I can't believe I didn't think of that myself when I was writing Dual Keys! Oh well, too late now, I guess, unless I can find some way to go back and change it later, but then again, the way I had it play out I feel was a bit more dramatic in its own way, even if it was similar to canon. And yeah, Sora didn't hear the others mentioning being able to summon Genie for that, because at the time, he was purely focused on waking up Kairi, and probably believed that Ven would be able to finish the job without him or something.

Also, as for why Ven didn't lose his composure when meeting Xigbar/Braig like he did with Xehanort's Heartless, there's actually a few reasons. One being that Braig, while annoying and infuriating had not wronged Ven as greatly as Xehanort did. The guy really just showed up before him the one time and then got his butt kicked by Aqua before running away like a little bitch.

Xion: Dude!

AN: What? We all know it's true. Secondly, while Ven was getting riled up, he was not really able to do too much before Xigbar ran like the coward he is.

As for your question regarding how Sora can still exist even though Roxas isn't part of him, you have to keep in mind that was already the case in canon as well, as Roxas had already been around and was doing work for the Organization long before Sora had ever ended up at Castle Oblivion, so I didn't really change much there myself. It's just something that was happening in the original version that I kept around.

Beyond that, I can't really answer to many more of your questions or comments without giving away spoilers, and as we all know, I don't normally do that.

Ven: At least not without some crazy gag that stops the whole spoiler from being given at least.

AN: Po-tay-toh Po-tah-toh. I will say that you have given me a few ideas for things I could do later on in the story though, so thanks for that. Here's hoping you enjoy the rest later on.

Well, I think that's everything. Remind me never to do review answers for two chapters again, especially when the list of reviews to answer is as long as this one was. We didn't even have time to do much of anything that fun.

Xion: Well, at least you still got that whole question of who would win in a face-off between Kim Possible and Carmen Sandiego out there.

AN: Yeah, that's true, I guess. Anyways, let's wrap things up and move Onto the Preview!...

Training may have become a little more difficult now that the team is working on their own skills and getting Mulan into fighting shape, but it is not impossible, and soon enough, the team finds itself joining the Imperial army in their march to the position where they intend to ambush the Huns. Though that does not stop Xion from trying to get her point across to Mulan about how she does not need to pretend to be something she's not to prove her value or bring her family honor. All the same, the two girls are more than ready for when they finally confront Shan-Yu, but can the team handle both that and whatever comes afterwards? The battle for China may be entering its final stages, and the girls are ready to show everyone just what they're made of, next time.

Please read and review, and see ya real soon! Seriously, I'm not doing two chapter's worth of review answers in one chapter again, so let's do what we can to avoid that in the future people! Now, what're we all standing around for? Back to rehearsals for when we reach this series' version of KH3

Oh, and I almost forgot! I recently posted a new version of certain scenes/chapters in Keyblades of Future Past, so if you haven't seen that yet, go check it out. Think of that as my new Final Mix version of that story. I'll be posting the original version of those scenes in a separate story later on. And if you want a little more of an idea on how the rest of the Keyblades Unleashed Series will play out, you can see a summary for the future stories in the series on my profile now, so check that out too, if you'd like!