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.

18. Classic Clashes

AN: Ladies and gents, we're back again. If you've been keeping up with the YouTube channel, then you know just what this is. Then again, you probably already know what it is just from the title of the story, but either way, you already know. I'm still gonna say it anyway; that was never in doubt. Welcome one and all to the newest chapter of Keyblade Legion!

[audience applause]

Aw yeah, you know you're excited, because this chapter's out on the release date of the very first, original Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, which means that it's also the birthday of the big mouse himself. So, we're giving our boy Mickey a little birthday present. Of course when I say literal I mean it in a figurative sense, not literal, because this chapter is huge! Like, I'm pretty sure that not even the chapter that told of the first visit to Beast's Castle was this long, huge. So, I won't waste any more time and let you guys get right into it. If there's gonna be any character interactions, it'll probably be at the end when we're doing review answers. Onto the show, everyone!

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

---

Chapter XVIII

Three times. Three times now had those Keyblade brats gotten in his way. Sure, that was not the sum total for all of them, but Pete would rather think about the most recent string of defeats than the exact number. Doing so just made him feel really upset and lose more confidence in himself, and right now, he needed all the confidence and bravery he could muster. Why? Because it was time he went to see his boss, both to give a report on what had been happening recently, at least on his end, and so he could make a request for more powerful Heartless. After all, if those Keyblade Legion brats kept getting in his way, Pete would need some stronger Heartless to beat them, and there were only two places you could get stronger Heartless from: the Realm of Darkness and Maleficent. The first of those options was already out; Pete may be working with the Mistress of all Evil, but he had no intention of going into a place like the Realm of Darkness, so he instead opted for Maleficent's stronghold on Hollow Bastion. Besides, even if she turned out to be away, he could always just scoop up some of the Heartless that were swimming about on this world, but he would rather get Maleficent's permission first, since she was the one who brought most of them here in the first place.

Now, just about everyone by this point was well aware that Maleficent had not been the true mastermind behind the Heartless incidents that ended a year ago, and how Ansem, Seeker of Darkness had basically made Maleficent into another pawn in a much bigger game. Another thing everyone was very aware of was how Ansem the Wise's apprentices were the ones that drew the Heartless to Hollow Bastion with the experiments that their master had attempted to stop, but considering that Pete had only just learned of Maleficent's defeat at the hands of Sora, Ventus, and their friends…yeah, it may have been asking a little too much for the big bully to have learned about any of that, be it on his own or otherwise. Still, even if he did know better, it probably would not have stopped him from creeping around in the Heartless stronghold Maleficent ruled over right now.

Too bad for Pete, he was finding out just how true the claims of his old master's defeat really were. "Maleficent…Maleficent," he called out as he peeked into one of the old meeting rooms. The only response he received was his own echo and silence. "Maybe they really did finish her off," Pete finally sighed in resignation before going in to better look around. A brief few seconds offered nothing satisfactory though. "And this castle sure ain't what I expected. No shine, no nothin'. Now what's gonna happen to our plan?"

Just when Pete had let out that last question, he heard a small sound from behind him, and turned around to see something unexpected. There, resting on the ledge was none other than Diablo, Maleficent's loyal pet bird, and from what Pete could tell, the bird did not seem too broken up or sad like most animals would be after losing their masters. The quick squawk that it let out did not sound very sad either, and Pete could feel a bit of hope building up in him, along with a certain sense of dread. Right when he was about to ask Diablo if the bird could tell him anything, a familiar, eerie, yet still smooth voice asked from behind him, "You called?"

Pete nearly jumped out of his skin when he spun around, and when he faced the speaker, he was not entirely certain if he should be relieved or not. There, standing before him, in all of her dark glory, was Maleficent herself, and she did not seem very happy right now. Under most circumstances, one would think it better to keep quiet and not risk saying something to upset Maleficent, but then again, Pete would hardly be considered smart. "M-M-Maleficent? Is that really you," Pete asked.

"Of course it is me, you imbecile," Maleficent snapped. "Why would you ever assume otherwise?"

"Well it's just…I ran into a certain bunch of Keyblade wielders, and they say…"

"Ah, yes. You must be referring to Ventus, his apprentice, and his little playmates," Maleficent reasoned, appearing to have calmed down a little. "I will admit that they did prove to be more competent than I originally believed them to be, but much like the darkness itself, I am not so easily extinguished. Make no mistake though; I will see those four, wretched fools suffer for what they had done to me."

"Uh, actually…You should know there's…six of them now," Pete hesitantly revealed.

"What? Six," Maleficent repeated in what could most closely be considered alarm. "You mean to tell me that Ventus actually found a way to bring back his old friends?"

"Uh no. At least, I don't think he did, but there are two new Keyblade wielders. A boy that looks a lot like Ventus and a little girl with black hair," Pete clarified.

Maleficent paused to consider this new information, but in the end just waved it off. "Whatever the case, it matters little. We have much more important work to do." She then turned this way and that, almost like she was looking around the room before she said, "Starting with the retaking of this world. I refuse to let this world slip from my grasp for good, but we will need to add a great many more Heartless to the ones already here."

"Yeah…that may be a little harder than you think, ma'am," Pete admitted, drawing Maleficent's ire onto him once more. "See, I've been trying to gather up some new Heartless for you, but…well, those Keyblade Legion brats have been getting in the way a lot, so…"

"Keyblade Legion?"

"Oh! Yeah, apparently, that's what Ventus and those other bozos are calling themselves now," Pete clarified, realizing Maleficent probably did not know that yet.

"I see," Maleficent mused aloud before turning to look out at the expanse of Heartless that surrounded her fortress. "And where is everyone else?"

Pete did not need to think too hard about who Maleficent was talking about; he knew that she had gathered a very impressive cabal of villains, and that it did not stop with just the ones who Sora, Ventus, and their friends had defeated a year ago either. He just did not want to tell her the bad news about how they all decided to call it quits on the alliance, which he now realized to be most likely because they had learned about her defeat. So he figured it would be best to try and soften the blow a little. "Beats me. They musta had some other matters to deal with," Pete shrugged.

"'Matters'?" Maleficent repeated with a twinge of rising anger, and Pete knew that he had not softened it enough. "You mean they had more important affairs to attend to than my return?"

Pete quickly scrambled for an excuse, but only managed to come up with one thing. "Well, see, aside from the Keyblade Legion, there's this Organization XIII that keeps gettin' in the way—"

Maleficent just scoffed before Pete could finish and said, "Fine. Let those fools play their little games."

"But what about those Keyblade Legion runts? Ventus has been a real pain too, and those other brats he's now training aren't any better," Pete revealed, insistent on getting his lady to hear him out.

"Oh have they," Maleficent asked, now starting to sound a little more intrigued than before. "Very well then. I suppose you'd best tell me everything of what's happened during my absence."

Pete gave a sinister grin when he heard that, and proceeded to tell his master everything. Or at least, an exaggerated, slightly different version of everything, but regardless, he was confident that Maleficent would like the tale he spun for her, not suspecting there may be a chance she would see through his lies and be upset by the end.

---

From the outside, one would think that the Kingdom-A was steadily flying to its next destination, and that its crew had decided to simply take their time getting there as opposed to just rushing over with the warp gummi. In reality, the ship was just cruising along through interspace for no particular reason other than to move about and give the impression that they had somewhere to go. You may be wondering why that is when they had opened up another pathway through interspace at the end of their visit to Olympus, and under normal circumstances they would be, but this time something different had happened. In spite of the fact that another gate had been opened up for them, nothing on the ship's maps appeared to have changed. Their selection of worlds remained the same as it had been before, and without any new places to go to, or any signs of something bad happening on any of the worlds they had visited previously, the Keyblade Legion found themselves without an immediate destination.

Sora had suggested that they return to the worlds that they already visited, thinking that they should at least drop in to make sure everything was okay, but Ventus insisted that if something requiring their attention had happened, they would have learned about it by now. Not that he really went into detail as to how they would know, but Ventus did know the Kingdom-A's workings better than the rest of them, so they took him at his word for now. Still, he did admit to finding it odd how the ship's map had not been updated with any new paths or locations for them after he had opened the gate, and that is why he spent a good amount of time up in the cockpit studying both the ship's systems and the charts to make sure they had not missed something. When he finished those checks, he left Donald and Goofy to man the controls and went to the simulator deck to join the other three wielders in a few rounds of vigorous training.

It may seem a little cheap to some people for the Keybearers to do their training on the simulator deck when they could go to any nearby world without having to worry about some big mission at the moment, but in the interest of preserving the world order, Ventus insisted that they keep their training on the ship as much as possible. None of the kids really understood how just being on a world could possibly upset the world order, but considering that the simulator deck let them practice anywhere they wanted without having to fly for several hours at a time, they did not complain either. Besides, they had plenty of things to practice on after what they went through on Olympus.

The biggest focus at the start of their training was helping Xion and Roxas get a better handle on both activating and using their new Command Styles. It may have seemed like a bit much for Ventus to put the two through a few paces in order to ensure they could both activate and effectively use these abilities, but considering how little time he had to help Sora with such matters after he activated his Unique Tier One Style, Ventus wanted to make sure that he had all the bases covered. This proved to be easier for Xion than it did Roxas, though everyone had expected that to be the case.

While Xion's newly discovered power was a typical Unique Tier One Style, Roxas's Ice Flare Style was a completely new ability. Ventus did not consider this to be surprising; given Roxas's nature as a natural dual wielder, but it did mean that they had to come up with an entirely new training method for mastering the ability. The other drawback to this was that Ventus could not properly test this on his student's behalf since he himself could not use Sync Blade or even the Drive Forms, so they had to rely on Roxas to test out any ideas they came up with for how to master and improve on this new Dual Style that he had created. Part of him could not help but chuckle a little when he first heard the name Sora had come up with for Roxas's new power, but then again, it did seem rather fitting and the others all agreed on it much more quickly than they had the idea of Keyblade Legion, so why not?

Thankfully, Roxas already had a few ideas on the workings of his Dual Style, and it turned out that a few of them were accurate. In order to activate Ice Flare, he just needed to use a combination of fire and ice spells, but it would only work if he only cast one of the required spells with Oathkeeper and the other with Oblivion. Afterwards, it was a simple matter of building up the energy like he always would to activate Command Styles, but only if the respective energies of each were evenly balanced with one another. If he used more of one spell over the other, it would not work and likely end up resulting in the Command Style that most closely related to the spell that he used the most. This idea proved to be true when he ended up getting Firestorm after using one too many fire spells in his tests of activating the Dual Style. It took a bit of experimenting, but Roxas eventually figured out how to get that balance between the two elements, and that opened up the gateway for discovering what other Dual Styles he could create. Sure, it may have seemed like a long-shot for him to create more than one of said powers, but then again, they had said something similar when Sora first suggested the idea of Dual Styles, so Roxas figured he should make the attempt at creating other combinations.

While Ventus worked with Roxas to make sure that the kid did not go overboard with his experimenting to create more Dual Styles, Sora and Xion put their focus on improving their magic abilities. It did not take a genius to realize that Xion's Magic Tapestry Style gained its power from the girl's use of magic, so Sora figured it would help if Xion strengthened her magic abilities a little more. Ventus agreed with that sentiment, and told him to help the girl increase her magic reserves. What he did not expect was that Sora would take it a step further and taught Xion a few new spells as well, at least in regards to ones that he himself knew, along with the second level versions of the spells she already learned. Even more impressive was that Xion managed to cast several of the latter and did not seem the least bit tired afterwards. In Ventus's experience, most people would have been left at least a little winded after casting the higher level version of a spell the first time, mainly due to not being used to that level of power, but Xion just shrugged it off like a champ before proceeding to cast another spell. Once again, the young girl was proving just how naturally talented she was with magic.

It did not stop with just magic practice though, because Sora and Xion also figured that they should get in some practice with their Valor Forms as well. Having not used them all that much on many of the worlds that they had visited so far, the two reasoned that they needed to practice more with their Drive Forms so that they could make it stronger. Plus, if they could make the Valor Form last a little longer, or even reactivate it again more quickly, then that was just one more advantage that they would have in a fight. That was why the two were currently sparring with one other while using their Valor Forms, the colors of their respective versions glowing brightly as they spun about and clashed blades with one another.

Both Sora and Xion were giving it everything they had in this spar, utilizing every single power and skill that they could only use while in Valor Form, and from where they were standing as they watched the spar go on, Ventus and Roxas would say that their friends were making some significant progress. Not only had Sora and Xion gotten even faster than ever, but they were actually gaining new abilities that they did not remember the two possessing when they first gained this awesome power-up, and it was not limited to ground-based attacks. It made sense that Valor Form would have plenty of aerial finishers and combo moves since it allowed the two to strengthen their High Jump ability, but they had not expected it to include such impressive ones. No one complained about it, though. Whatever added to their arsenal was something they would welcome without a second thought.

Eventually, Ventus called for Sora and Xion to put their spar to an end, since it seemed like neither of them would ever do so on their own. They had been going at it for quite some time now and showed no signs of stopping any time soon. When he realized this and that the two were still powered up, Roxas quickly stated, "Hey, did you guys notice how long you've had your Valor Forms active?"

"Not really. Why," Sora asked.

Ventus realized what Roxas was talking about when he saw none of the usual signs that the Valor Forms were about to deactivate, and Sora and Xion's sparring match had been going on for far longer than the forms normally would have lasted. "Hey Roxas is right," Ventus noted for the two. "You should've changed back to your standard forms by now."

Sora took a brief time to glance over his still red and white outfit, and give Xion's gold and emerald one a quick once over, before he finally shrugged and said, "Oh yeah. I barely even noticed. Guess I was a little more into the match than I thought."

"Yeah, same here," Xion admitted. "I mean, I like my outfit's normal appearance, but something about the way it changes when I'm in Valor Form has become both soothing and empowering at the same time if that makes any sense."

"I wouldn't know, seeing as I don't have a Drive Form like you guys," Roxas shrugged. "I'm actually more curious as to how you couldn't notice that you haven't changed back until we said something. Were the second Keyblades not a big enough clue?"

"Very funny," Sora jabbed back with a roll of his eyes, albeit with a light of humor in them when he did. After saying that and powering down his Drive Form along with Xion, Sora added on, "I guess the idea of being able to use two Keyblades at once has become something I don't really think about too much now. Probably because a certain someone can do it without any special power-ups."

Roxas could smirk in reply to that little reminder, making any jealousy he felt over not having the same kind of power-up as his sister and brother dwindle into nothing, much to Ventus's relief. A part of him did worry that Roxas would eventually grow a little envious of his fellow apprentices having Drive Forms while he did not, so he was glad to see that even if that did become an issue, it was one that could be easily dealt with. Still, he had a few of his own thoughts to share on why Sora found his Valor Form's ability to grant him use of two Keyblades at once so natural.

"Or it could have something to do with the fact that you've used two Keyblades at once without needing a Drive Form before," Ventus reminded Sora, startling all three of the kids.

"Huh? What're you…Oh, right. I almost forgot about that," Sora recalled after a brief second.

"Wait, what are you two talking about? When did Sora ever use two Keyblades without a Drive Form," Roxas asked. He did not remember ever seeing anything about that when he had been getting visions of Sora's last adventure. A quick exchange of looks with Xion told him that she did not remember that either.

"It was during our last face-off with Ansem," Sora explained. "He had us on the ropes and was about to finish off Kairi, when suddenly, I got really angry, and felt a huge rush from somewhere. I don't really remember much of what happened after that point, other than suddenly holding something in both hands and attacking Ansem with everything I had, but apparently, I managed to summon both Oathkeeper and Oblivion at once, and fought him with both blades. At least, that's what Ven told me after we finally beat him, sealed the Door to Darkness, and went to find Riku, King Mickey, and Master Aqua." He then looked to the twins and asked, "Didn't you guys already know that? I thought you had seen all my memories through dreams or something."

"Most of what we saw was just brief flashes or glimpses of general events and a few conversations. We never saw the whole thing from start to finish," Xion corrected. "Didn't think we would have missed out on something that important because of that."

"Maybe that means you've got the potential to naturally wield two Keyblades as well inside of you," Roxas guessed. He then scratched his chin a little before proposing another guess. "Or maybe…that was like some kind of small clue of my existence. Like the Keyblades were trying to tell you I was out there."

Sora crossed his arms in thought for a brief spell, pondering over Roxas's suggestions in his mind along with their validity, before he finally said, "I guess that could've been it. We never really figured out how or why I was suddenly able to use two Keyblades at once back then, and the closest I've come to doing it again has only been when I'm using Valor Form."

"That doesn't necessarily mean you don't have the potential to use Sync Blade without said forms. We have already seen that your Drive Forms can help you guys in mastering certain abilities just from how Valor Form allowed you and Xion to learn and increase the power of the High Jump ability; or in your case, relearn and increase the power of said ability," Ventus pointed out.

The four would have continued to ponder over this for a little longer, had the ship's alarm not suddenly started blaring loudly. Shortly afterwards, Donald's voice squawked out over the intercom, "Red alert! Everyone get to the bridge right away! We've got a huge emergency! Repeat: all hands to the bridge now!"

Even if he had not used the ship's alarm to get their attention, the Keybearers could all hear a very distinct sense of panic in Donald's voice when he spoke, and that served as even more motivation for them to book it up to the bridge. When they got there, both Donald and Goofy had faces of panic that bespoke of worries like none either of the two best friends ever showed before for as long as most of the Keybearers had known them. Out of all of them, only Ventus had ever seen his friends looking that level of worried, and they had only appeared shortly after he first met the two. "This can't be good," Ventus quietly muttered upon remembering said time. "What's going on?"

"Ven, it's awful news," Goofy informed the blonde.

"We just received an S.O.S. from Disney Castle," Donald picked up. "Queen Minnie sent it herself!"

"WHAT?!" all four Keybearers exclaimed, none more loudly than Ventus. That was to be expected, since he was the only other one in the group aside from Donald and Goofy to call said castle home.

"It's true! Something terrible musta happened if Her Majesty's calling us for help! I just know it," Goofy bemoaned.

"Oh my stars above!" Jiminy gasped in shock. "If something really has happened to the castle or Disney Town in general then…"

"Then we don't have any time to lose! Everyone to your stations! Sora, set course for Disney Town at maximum warp!" Ventus ordered, not that anyone needed that much prompting. They had all started scrambling into their seats and stations the second Ventus had finished his first sentence.

"You got it," Sora confirmed once he had strapped into his seat, his fingers flying across the helm controls. "Hang on, guys! Next stop is Ven, Donald, and Goofy's home!"

A second later, the gummi ship's engines had blazed to life and the Kingdom-A had spun around and rocketed off in the direction of Disney Town, jettisoning into warp speed the second that it faced the right direction. No one could blame you for thinking that even the ship itself was determined to get there as quickly as possible, because even the Keyblade Legion got that impression from how quickly it roared to life after Sora had set the coordinates for Disney Town.

---

After parking the ship in orbit of so many worlds, Sora found it to be a nice change of pace to actually be able to land the ship on one, and within the confines of a specialized hangar at that. Granted, he was a little nervous about landing in the garage, but thankfully, Ventus and Donald were happy to keep him calm and give him just enough coaching to make sure it went smoothly. When the Kingdom-A had finally touched down, Sora quickly shut down all but the minimum of necessary systems, and joined the rest in disembarking into the very elaborate hangar bay. Looking around, Sora could honestly say he had never seen more large gears in his life, or even a place that looked more whimsical yet still incredibly functional than this. Ventus certainly had not been kidding when he said that this world was like something straight out of a cartoon when he asked about Donald and Goofy's world once, and from the looks on Roxas and Xion's faces, the twins were just as excited to explore more of this world as Sora.

"So this is Disney Castle, huh," Sora commented aloud to everyone, letting his awe carry into his voice.

"It sure looks like something else just with this one room," Xion admitted, but her face soon fell shortly after. "Still, I was kind of expecting it to be a little brighter in all the rooms."

"I was expecting there to be more people," Roxas admitted. "Then again we did come back while they were in the middle of an emergency, so I guess that shouldn't be too surprising."

Sora could not help but agree with his siblings, but at the same time, he did not want Ventus, Donald, and Goofy to get any more worried than they already were. So he put on a smile, turned to the three, and said, "Circumstances aside, it must be nice for you guys to finally be home, huh?" When the three did not answer, Sora grew a little worried, and that worry only increased when he noticed how the three friends were worriedly looking around. "Well?"

The three all kept quiet for a little bit longer, until Goofy finally said, "Ya know, something just don't feel quite right."

"Yeah," Donald agreed.

"I know. I can sense it too," Ventus informed his friends. "There's something here that shouldn't be…"

"What," Xion asked, already fearing the answer.

"…Darkness," Ventus answered after a short hesitation.

"But isn't there darkness on every world," Roxas asked, having remembered that from both Ventus's lessons and their meeting with Yen Sid.

"Usually, but much like with the hearts people, there are also worlds that are special exceptions to that rule," Ventus explained. His eyes narrowed with suspicion as he took another glance around as he insisted, "And this is supposed to be one such world."

The three kids were just about to question Ventus on why that was when a certain squeaky voice suddenly shouted, "Hey! You're here! You're back!"

Turning to the speakers, the Keyblade Legion were treated to the sight of Chip and Dale sliding down the railing of the nearby staircase as they scurried over to them as fast as the chipmunks' little legs could carry them. "Thank the light you're here," Chip rejoiced, carrying on from his earlier greeting.

"Yeah, come on! We've got to get going," Dale added on.

"Whoa, whoa! Slow down you two. We only just got here," Xion placated. Or at least she tried too.

"We don't have time to slow down! Queen Minnie needs to you all right away," Chip informed them.

"The castle's in huge danger and our other friends can only do so much to keep the queen safe without your help," Dale added on.

"Where are they," Ventus asked, getting right down to business after hearing that some of there were people in trouble.

"Queen Minnie's in the library with our substitute Captain of the Royal Knights," Chip replied. "Duchess Daisy is safe for the moment thanks to Lady Della, but we don't have much time to check on them."

"Chipper's right! We've gotta get you to the library right away if we're gonna stop this! Queen Minnie's orders," Dale finished.

"Okay, then let's get a move on, Keyblade Legion," Sora ordered. His friends all nodded in agreement and followed after the gummi engineers, Donald, and Goofy as they led the way out of the garage.

They had quite the climb up the staircase out, but when they finally reached the top, the three who were not from Disney Castle had to stop and stare at the reward that awaited them. As it turned out, the entrance from the castle to the garage was actually in the middle of the castle garden, and said garden was nothing short of amazing. With grass as brilliant green as you can imagine, to clear blue skies, and even the main castle itself towering over everything in shining white and blue colors, Sora, Roxas, and Xion could certainly see why their friends were happy to call this world home. Not only that, but the more they looked around, the more they felt like they could see themselves spending quite a bit of time here for a fun vacation at the very least. The various hedges that were trimmed into the shape of various music performers, structures, and even the one shaped like a castle, which they had just stepped out from, only added to the fun and playful nature that this world seemed to emanate.

Despite the fact that Chip and Dale had already rushed ahead of them, Donald, Goofy, and Ventus just had to slow their pace when they realized that the youngest of their group had stopped to better take in their new surroundings with bright, childlike smiles. Donald and Goofy had to grin with pride at seeing this, while Ventus's gave a more nostalgic smile, since they all remembered how the blonde master had a very similar reaction when he first moved into Disney Castle at the beginning of his training under Mickey. It was like watching a bunch of little kids going to the amusement park for the first time, and none of them wanted to ruin this moment for the three.

After taking another glance around and even going so far as to spin around in place as she took in her surroundings, Xion finally let her opinion about the castle be known to all, and declared, "This place is beautiful."

"No kidding. It definitely has a royal appeal to it," Sora lightly joked, making some of them groan just from how bad it was.

"Bad jokes aside," Roxas playfully groaned before letting his excitement show as well. "This place has got the Beast's Castle beat, at least as far as appearances go."

Ventus would normally agree with the kids, and he did for the most part, but at the moment, he could not shake the uneasiness that had been in the pit of stomach since they arrived. There was definitely a darkness present here in the normally peaceful world, but now that they were out of the gummi ship hangar, he could tell that it seemed to be mostly focused on the castle itself. As to why that was the case, Ventus had no idea, but he quickly started getting some clues when he spotted something slowly rising up from the ground, and while several other things began to materialize before them. He turned around to get a better look, and was startled to see the last thing he ever expected to find on a world that shined as brightly as this one.

"Heartless?! Here?!" Ventus gasped in horror as he summoned out Guardian Wind, slicing apart the closest Shadows before they could attack him or his friends. "But how's that possible?"

"I don't know, but if they've hurt even one our pals, they're gonna be in for a world of hurt," Goofy promised as he summoned his shield and proceeded to bash some Soldiers and plant-looking Heartless that were with them.

"Yeah! Let's get 'em," Donald shouted as he waved his staff about, calling down a storm of lightning bolts to destroy several Heartless at once.

Sora, Roxas, and Xion quickly joined in on the action once they had summoned out their Keyblades as well, and like that, the Keyblade Legion had set to work in clearing as many Heartless out of the castle's garden as possible. Jiminy did not stay still for very long though, as he had to give them all an urgent warning. "Watch out for those plant-like ones," the chronicler alerted them. "Those are Minute Bombs! And they might only have two attacks, but they're both really dangerous. They basically get in close to a target and then launch a destructive headbutt at whatever's right in front of them, and if they don't do that, then it will start a nine second countdown that ultimately leads it to self-destruct, and take whatever's nearby with it."

"Thanks for the heads-up," Roxas called out as he cut down several Minute Bombs at once with Oathkeeper and Oblivion. "I think we can handle them, though."

Roxas was not wrong. The team proved capable of handling the Minute Bombs just as well as they handled the Shadows and Soldiers, and quickly cleared the garden of the Heartless in no time. At least, they thought they did, but all they really managed to get rid of were the ones that had appeared when they first entered the garden. Just when they had destroyed the last Shadow, another three rose up from the ground, followed by several more soon after, blocking their way back into the gummi ship hangar, and the soldiers ended up being replaced with fresh troops just as quickly. Good thing no one had any intention of going back to the ship right now; not while there was an obvious crisis at hand, and they proved that just with the Keyblade wielders cutting down the new Heartless that had materialized closest to them. Thankfully, the Minute Bombs did not seem to regenerate in the same way, if at all, but whatever amount of ease that brought to the fight ended up being overshadowed by just how many Shadows and Soldiers had come in place of the initial groups.

Unfortunately for them, the Heartless numbers did not stop increasing; and with every Heartless they destroyed, even more of that one came back to take its place. The exact number of new Heartless to appear in place of the destroyed ones even increased as the fight went on, and even with all the best spells at their disposal, the Keyblade Legion had very little luck in slowing the Heartless down. Given how bad things appeared to be just out here, Ventus did not want to think about how bad things could be inside the castle, and that thought spurred him further into action. If the Heartless really were just as bad, if not worse inside as they were out here, then their friends were most definitely in serious trouble, along with anyone else who may or may not be here right now, and Ventus had no intention of letting these things claim a single citizen of the world that he had taken to calling home for close to ten years now.

As proof of the Keyblade master's resolve, Ventus's Tier Two Command Style, Wingblade came blazing into being without him even needing to access any of the Tier One Styles at his disposal. He had no idea how he was able to accomplish that, but Ven was not going to question it right now, and the blonde started destroying every Heartless he could with the six light swords in order to open up a path that would admit them inside. Thanks to this, the others gained a little more breathing space of their own, and that helped shorten the time needed for making that opening. Even after getting inside, Ventus's Wingblade still had some power left in it, and since they walked right into a swarm of Shadows just after getting through the door and climbing part way up the stairs, they had even less reason to believe that to be a bad thing. Too bad for them Wingblade could not last forever, and Ven soon had to unleash the finisher to destroy as many Shadows as possible, giving them a chance to breathe as they made their way up the stairs and down the hall to the library.

Along the way, they noticed a large door with a glowing barrier in front of it, prompting quick sighs of relief from Ventus, Donald, and Goofy, leading the kids to realize that whatever lay beyond the door had to be important. Too bad they did not get a chance to really ask about it, because the Heartless were soon upon them once again, and they had to start blasting and slashing at every Shadow that dared to come close. This time around, Xion and Sora made it a point to unleash several rounds of magic right from the start, thinking that it would help speed up the process in clearing a path forward, and with Roxas practically bulldozing his way through with every swing and spin of his Keyblades, they were certainly proven correct, because their path forward did not remain impeded for very long.

Ventus had to smile a little, impressed with the skill and hard work that his apprentices displayed, but his mood soon changed when he realized that there had been another reason why they managed to cut out an opening to proceed forward. "Oh no," Ventus gasped. "They're making a charge towards the library!"

"And Queen Minnie," Goofy exclaimed as he ran after the Heartless in a desperate attempt to either stop them or cut them off.

"Oh, no you don't," Donald growled as he joined Goofy in that rush, brandishing his staff at the Heartless while calling down whatever spells he still had the energy for.

The four Keybearers were just about to join Donald in his spell barrage, or in Roxas's case, join Goofy in his chase, when suddenly a shield very similar to Goofy's came flying out from the library, and sliced through several Shadows like a spinning razor blade. When all the destroyed Heartless had turned to dust clouds and the shield returned to where it came from, everyone was surprised to see a young man who looked a lot like Goofy dressed in a red shirt, blue pants, and some very basic knight armor, minus the helmet. Since the shield was no longer in midflight, they could also see that it was a near exact replica of Goofy's basic shield, save for being colored red as opposed to the usual blue. Seeing this boy brought surprised looks to half the Legion's faces, but the other half all had wide eyes of recognition, and one in particular had a touch of excitement mixed in as well.

"Maxie!" Goofy happily cheered.

"Dad! Donald! Get everyone into the library, quick!" the young knight shouted as he waved the Keyblade Legion towards him.

The team did not need to be told twice, and immediately rushed inside the room. Donald stopped short of the door when he noticed more Heartless starting to appear again, and immediately spun around to blast them with some powerful water magic. He was not alone though, as Ventus, Sora, Xion, and even Roxas had turned to spare some magic of their own, with Ventus conjuring up Aeroga, Sora casting Blizzaga, Xion shooting out Fira, and Roxas rounding it all out by calling down a bolt of lightning with Thunder. Between the five different spells that had come hurtling towards them, the Heartless hardly stood a chance, and any that did somehow survive had not stayed for very long, because someone behind the five took them out with a strong light spell soon after.

Not bothering to question who had shot off the final spell, the team all ducked into the library and let Goofy and his fellow knight slam the door shut once everyone was inside. The second that the door had closed, a light barrier shot up before it as extra insurance for keeping the Heartless out. At first, the team thought that it had been Donald who did that, until a very distinctively female voice declared, "That should keep those nasty little palookas out. If not for a long time, then definitely for now."

Turning around allowed everyone to finally meet the caster behind that last light spell, and it turned out to be a female duck with long, white hair, decked out in an outfit befitting of a plane pilot, a blue scarf, and holding a blue, straight staff similar to Donald's, with the exception of having a blue star on top instead of a wizard's hat. Much like Goofy had recognized the knight who just saved them, Donald recognized this mage without fail. "Della?!"

"Donald?"

The two ducks stared each other down for several seconds without saying anything, but no one else felt any reason to keep quiet. "Okay, who is this," Roxas asked with a nod to the lady duck. He then looked to the knight who had provided their last minute rescue and added, "And who are you?"

"This is my boy, Max, a future royal knight," Goofy proudly introduced with a pat on Max's shoulder. "Maxie, meet my new pals, Sora, Roxas, and Xion."

"Hi-ya. Nice to meet you guys," Max greeted with a friendly wave.

"Same here," Sora said on behalf of the three apprentices, while Roxas and Xion simply nodded. Though they did wonder why Goofy did not introduce Ventus as well. Thankfully, they got their answer pretty quickly.

"Hey Max! Long time no see," Ventus smiled as he raised his hand up for a high-five.

"No way! Ven, dude! It's good to see ya," Max cheered as he accepted the offered high-five. "I heard you finally made Keyblade master, but I didn't think you'd start trying to look the part by growing out a beard."

"Yeah, the beard's a more recent change to my appearance," Ventus informed his friend. "But what brings you back to the castle? I thought you were still finishing up college."

"I was, but then I got a call from Queen Minnie asking me to come back and serve as temporary captain of the Royal Knights. When I heard that, I figured that something had happened to my dad, so I came as fast as I could. All they really told me after I got here was that you guys had gone off on some heroic mission and hadn't been heard from in months, so I've been keeping an eye on things here ever since. Not that I've really had to do too much. Dad's job isn't exactly the hardest in the world," Max explained with a shrug.

Ventus gave Max a nod to show his agreement with that point, before looking to the lady duck that Donald was still staring at, this time with equal confusion to that of his apprentices. "So, who is that?"

"That's Della Duck, the best pilot in all of our world, skilled mage, and Donald's twin sister," Goofy declared, surprising the Keyblade wielders with that last fact.

"Wait, sister?!" Xion and Roxas both exclaimed.

"Donald has a sister?" Sora questioned in surprise.

"How did I never find out about this after living here for ten years," Ventus asked, honestly baffled that he was only just learning about this.

"Well who do you think Huey, Dewey, and Louie's parents were? Or didn't you ever notice that they always refer to Donald as their uncle," Max questioned. That made the Keybearers go quiet, but mainly because they did not want to admit that none of them had ever really thought all that hard on the matter before. After all, it was not like they had really ran into the boys all that much.

At that point, the quiet stare down between the two duck siblings finally came to an end, but in the way any of them expected. Though in hindsight, they probably should have known that the two would start ranting and raving in the usual, Donald-like manner after not seeing each other for so long. "Where have you been?!" Della demanded. "Do you have any idea how worried we all were?!"

"Like you're one to talk! Who was it that stole Uncle Scrooge's newest, experimental gummi ship, flew off on her own, and got themselves stranded on the moon for years, huh," Donald snapped back.

"Oh, here we go! It always comes right back around to the moon thing! You just can't ever let it go," Della angrily retorted. "At least I had an excuse for not ever calling after flying off to places unknown and leaving everyone worried about me!"

"And just how was I supposed to know that I would end up stuck out on another world without any means of getting back, and then get my memories messed with so that I had to spend a year sleeping while they were put back together?!" Donald returned fire.

"Hey, you could've at least sent a letter or something! Let us know you were gonna vanish from our lives for a year instead of worrying us all sick! I swear, you never change, or you'd realize how much we all missed you!"

"I missed you too, ya dummy!"

That put an end to the shouting match, and after another quiet spell, this one much shorter, the Duck siblings wrapped each other in a warm, heartfelt hug, each shedding quiet tears of joy over being reunited after such a long time. The others could not help smiling at the sight of this impromptu family reunion, but they knew they did not really have much time to let go on for very long. Besides, the Keyblade Legion had come here on a mission, and after seeing the Heartless knocking at every door in the castle outside, they felt it necessary to get working as soon as possible. Thankfully, the person who had summoned them was in the room as well, and the team immediately approached, with Donald and Goofy snapping out salutes, while Ventus waited his turn to give his greeting.

"Your Majesty, Queen Minnie, we're back," Donald reported.

The small, mouse queen had already been smiling brilliantly upon seeing her friends reuniting with their respective family members, but having them addressing her directly did bring an extra bit of light to her smile as she nodded to them. "You're here."

"Yes, ma'am. We received your summons and came as quickly as we could," Goofy added on.

"Oh thank you," Minnie happily said right when the next person she was acquainted with stepped forward.

"It's good to see you after so long, Queen Minnie," Ventus greeted with a brief bow.

"Now, now, Ventus. You know that you don't need to be so formal with me," Minnie lightly chastised, albeit with a kind smile.

Ventus merely smiled in return before stating, "I know, but I should try to set a good example for my apprentices." He then motioned for said kids to step forward and added, "Permit me to introduce Keyblade Warrior Sora, and Apprentices Roxas and Xion."

"Oh, so you're Sora, Roxas, and Xion," Minnie gasped with realization, surprising the Legion a little bit. "How delightful to meet you all at last."

"Wait, you know us?" Sora asked, apparently forgetting any intentions he had of being respectful before royalty due to his surprise. Assuming he ever had any at all, but either way, he still received a light smack upside the head for his rudeness. "Ow!" he exclaimed while turning an annoyed look to the offending duck.

"Please excuse him," Donald apologized, not paying Sora's annoyance any mind.

"No, no, it's quite alright," Minnie assured them. "Any friend of yours and Ven's is a friend of mine."

"All the same, we're still surprised you know about us, Your Majesty," Xion reiterated on behalf of her friends.

"Of course," Minnie acknowledged. "The King told me all about the three of you in his letters, as well as a little bit about Sora's other friends, Riku and Kairi. He said that you're all very brave young men and women, much like Ventus and his friends."

Sora could not help but smile a bit as his face turned a light shade of red, flattered to hear that the king had given him such praise, but Roxas and Xion were a different story. As far as they could remember, they had never encountered King Mickey before they left Twilight Town, so how could he have known enough about them to mention them in his letters? Was he somewhere close by watching out for them, or did they meet each other at some point during the twins' time with Organization XIII? Regardless of this new mystery, hearing that the king had been sending letters to home did give them another idea that they just had to ask about.

"Does that mean you know where he is," Roxas asked, and judging by how the rest of his friends had excitedly brightened up, it seemed like they had the same idea as him.

Minnie sadly shook her head no, prompting Della to step up and explain, "We may have been getting letters from King Mickey, but none of them have ever given any clues or indications as to where he's been for the past year, let alone where he might be right now."

Hearing that drew disappointed sighs from the world travelers, but they still had to acknowledge that it had probably been a long-shot that anyone here would know where the Keyblade king could be right now. At the very least, the knowledge that he had been sending messages at all was a good sign of how he was doing at the moment, so they received some small comforts in this problematic moment. Speaking of which, Ventus decided that they had spent enough time on small talk, and turned their conversation to the matter that had drawn the Keyblade Legion to this world to begin with.

"Much as I'd hate to bring down the mood, I do hope you can shed some light on what exactly is happening here in the castle right now, Minnie," Ventus requested.

"Yeah! Like what are Heartless doing in the castle," Donald asked.

"Oh my…so those are the Heartless," Queen Minnie muttered under her breath, apparently having not realized that until just now. It did make sense though, given that Ventus had implied earlier that it should have been impossible for the Heartless to reach this world, so the only way anyone here would have known what they looked like would have been to venture to another world.

"Huh. Not quite what I had expected them to look like," Della admitted, with Max nodding along afterwards.

"Does that mean none of you know how they're here," Xion guessed.

"I'm afraid we do have some semblance of an idea, actually, and it's the main reason why I called for you all to come," Minnie revealed. "There's something I'd like for all of you to see, so would you please escort me to the audience chamber?"

"Whoa, wait a minute!" Max interrupted. "With all due respect, Your Majesty, we barely just managed to get them in here after they were ambushed by a huge swarm of those Heartless, and we still don't even know for sure if everyone in the castle has gotten to safety."

Minnie let out a startled gasp after receiving that reminder. "Oh dear! I almost completely forgot about that! We need to warn everyone in the castle about the danger as quickly as possible, and make sure that they're all hidden somewhere safe."

"I know, but we need to clear the way to the audience chamber as well, especially given how serious the situation is in the Hall of the Cornerstone," Della pointed out.

"Who says we can't do both," Sora asked, surprising everyone. "We'll just need to split up. We've got plenty of people here to check on everyone else in the castle and escort Queen Minnie to the audience chamber."

"Good call, Sora," Ventus agreed. "Goofy, Donald, and I will go check on the rest of the castle residents. Max, Della, do you think you two can help us with tracking everyone down?"

"No problem, Ven," Max confirmed.

"Hold up. Doesn't that mean that you're leaving the queen in the hands of these three kids," Della asked, understandably worried. "I mean no disrespect when I say this, but just what can they really do to guarantee her safety?" Her answer came from Sora, Roxas, and Xion each quietly summoning out their Keyblades with knowing smiles, surprising Della greatly. "Oh right. Keyblade wielders," she finally recalled before turning to her brother. "Donald, have I mentioned how jealous I am that you've been traveling around to other worlds with a small team of Keyblade wielders yet?"

"You can tell me about it while we make sure everyone's okay," Donald informed his sister.

Della nodded in reply, and with that, Ventus led his team out of the library so that they could make sure the residents of Disney Castle were safe. Just before he left the room, he did turn back to his apprentices so he could give them a few last minute instructions. "Do whatever you can to keep Queen Minnie safe, you three. Don't hesitate to use everything you've all learned so far if you have to, and may your hearts be your guiding keys."

"Likewise, Ven," Sora replied, and with that, the blonde master departed.

"So, I guess we'd better get to the audience chamber, right ma'am," Roxas asked of the queen.

"Yes, Roxas. Let's be on our way," Minnie encouraged.

"Not just yet," Sora cautioned much to everyone's surprise. He then proceeded to pull out a few different potion vials from some of his many pockets, and passed them out amongst himself, Roxas, and Xion as he explained, "After all the trouble we went through getting here, I'd say we need a few pick-me-ups to make sure we're all at full strength. We're going to need to be at our best if we're going to get Queen Minnie to the audience chamber."

"Good thinking," Xion agreed as she downed an Elixir in a small number of quick gulps. Roxas nodded in equal agreement, and made it a point to drink up the various Potions and Hi-Potions that Sora had handed him, while Sora himself swallowed the Potions and Ethers that he had kept for himself.

Once the three had felt their strength fully restored by the magic drinks, they gave a unanimous nod of confirmation to Queen Minnie as a show of readiness, and proceeded to leave the library, with Keyblades at the ready and in hand.

---

Ventus and the others must have cleared away most of the Heartless between the library and the audience chamber, because Sora, Roxas, and Xion really did not have too much to worry about as they escorted the queen there. Sure, there was still a reasonable amount of Heartless left behind to deal with, along with a new big one that Jiminy had identified as a Bolt Tower, but aside from having to figure out a strategy for beating the newest discovered foe, the kids had little problems with getting Minnie to the large door that was protected by the light barrier. When they reached said door, the queen explained that she had sealed it herself after the trouble had started up, because the thing that she wanted them to see was of very great importance, and she did not want to take any chances that the Heartless might be able to do any harm to said object. Hearing that, the three siblings could not help but wonder if maybe it was too risky to open up this room without the rest of their friends here, but Minnie assured them that so long as they could reach the throne, they would be able to ensure that their friends could get to them safely.

With her assurance given, Minnie lifted the spell protecting blocking entrance to the audience chamber, and the four proceeded inside, keeping on guard for any surprises that may lie in wait for them on the other side. The three Keybearers did find it a little funny that the actual door was much more normal sized than it appeared to be, but all humor died when they got inside the audience chamber and found a most frightening sight within.

"Oh no! Not here too," Minnie cried in dismay, for there, between them and the king's throne, came a massive army of Bolt Towers down from above them, and it seemed like more were materializing into existence by the second.

"Don't worry, Your Highness. We've got this," Sora assured her as he and the twins summoned their Keyblades forth, ready to fight again, and it took very little time for him to form a plan of action. "Xion, you stay close to the queen. Keep her safe and give us as much support as possible. Roxas and I are gonna smash through this wall of Heartless with everything we've got, but if you spot any kind of opening to move forward before us, don't wait. Just make a break for it and get as close to the throne as you can. If you get into any trouble though…"

"Use the D-Link to call out to you guys," Xion figured out.

"Yep."

"Enough talking already," Roxas insisted, and before anyone could blink, he already gotten up close to the nearest Bolt Tower and bashed it in the head with both Keyblades. "LET'S GO!"

That served as the signal for the three young wielders to spring into action, starting with Sora letting loose a blast of his Radiant Blade Shotlock. Several Bolt Towers fell to the light-based attack, and after the light had faded, Xion easily spotted an opening which she and Minnie could try and run through to get closer to the throne. They only got about a quarter of the way there, but thankfully, the boys both noticed when the two ladies had started their run, and made sure to keep as many Heartless away as they could so they could try and make another opening. Whether it was through magic or simple blade strikes, Sora and Roxas made easy work of tearing apart any Heartless that dared to try and come close to Xion and Minnie, and when they could not get there fast enough, Xion proved to be no slouch in quick reactions, because she cut down or blasted any Bolt Tower that drew too close for comfort before it could really do much of anything.

In spite of their efforts, the kids still made much more than a dent in the Heartless' numbers, but mattered little to them since they were not trying to destroy them all. They just needed to open up a path to the throne, and hope that whatever Queen Minnie needed in here would be able to turn the tide in their favor. Speaking of which, the queen of Disney Castle was proving very capable with magic as well, as she often provided Xion with a little extra assistance by combining her power with hers to unleash some powerful light spells that better protected them from the Heartless whenever they got too close. It did end up being a big help, and allowed the girls to get a little closer to the finish line, but as they drew nearer to the throne, the Heartless seemed to swarm in greater and greater numbers. Thankfully, the three Keyblade wielders did not deviate from their plan, so Sora and Roxas were quick to respond the second they heard Xion calling out to them for help through the D-Link. The Heartless that had been responsible for said S.O.S. quickly learned why it was ill-advised to target the boys' little sister, but even with all three wielders working together, they had much more trouble than before with opening up a path.

Realizing that they needed some more help, Sora contemplated using the D-Link to call Ventus, but he quickly dismissed that notion. With how big the castle was and little idea on where exactly the Keyblade master could be right now, they had no idea just how long it would be before Ventus even reached them. Still, Sora doubted that they could handle much more even if all three of them were to power up their Command Styles, and that was taking into account that Roxas had just recently activated Ice Flare, so if they were going to get any backup, he knew of only one way to make it happen. It took him a minute, but after fumbling through his many pockets, Sora finally found the item he was looking for and prepared to use it. Unfortunately he barely had the chance to get more than a miniscule amount of magic into said item before he was suddenly blown off his feet by a Bolt Tower's shockwave attack, and the item slipped out of his hand to the floor.

When she heard something hit the floor with a faint clink, Xion instantly turned to see the item Sora had attempted to use, and gasped at the sight of the summon charm Merlin had given him when they last saw the wizard. To make matters worse, Sora looked like he was hurt pretty bad by that last attack, and she doubted he would be able to retrieve the charm before one of these Heartless destroyed it or Sora. So, without even thinking, she instantly rushed forward as fast as she could; only sparing enough time to tell Roxas to keep Minnie covered, and scooped it up into her hand. Once she had the charm in her grasp, Xion then started channeling her own magic into it much like she remembered seeing Sora and Ventus do in some of her dreams when they used other charms, and then raised it high above her head while shouting, "SUMMON!"

Sora had only just pulled out a Hi-Potion to heal himself when he heard Xion's cry, and quickly turned around to stare in shock at the sight of the girl using his summon charm in his stead. When the charm stopped glowing, they all heard a horse's whinny echoing from somewhere nearby, and shortly after, a black horse suddenly burst onto the scene, with its rider jumping off as it passed Xion. Said rider was dressed in blue with a hood over their head, and quickly notched several arrows into the bow that they had drawn just before dismounting. The arrows were sent flying shortly after, and all landed right on target, destroying multiple Bolt Towers when they did.

"Whoa," Xion gasped at the sight of such skilled archery. She then turned to the archer who fired the arrows and asked, "Who are you?"

The archer then lowered their hood, to reveal a young girl with curly red hair, who proudly declared in an accent very similar to Scrooge's, "I am Merida, princess of Dunbroch. Now would someone be so kind as to explain what magic brought me to this strange land?"

"Uh…Long story short, I'm Xion, and I used a summon charm to bring you here, because we need help fighting off these monsters," the young apprentice quickly filled in. "So, think you can pull off another trick shot like that?"

Merida glanced between the girl and the Heartless before she let out a quick smirk, grabbed an arrow from her quiver, and stated, "Aye, that won't be any problem at all."

Just like that, the redhead had begun firing a rapid barrage of arrows to destroy as many Heartless as possible, giving Sora a chance to jump clear and take Xion's place at Minnie's side, at least until said girl got the chance to get there herself. As he was going, he began to channel his magic so that he could power up his Destiny Blaze Command Style, so when Xion did finally jump in to take over guarding Minnie again, Sora was primed and ready to unleash his personal Tier One Command Style on the creatures of darkness. Between Roxas and Sora using their respective Command Styles, Merida providing additional support with her impressive archery skills, and Xion adding in her own assistance with every spell she could conjure up without draining away the magic fueling the summon too fast, the team were finally able to make it to the other end of the audience chamber without much further incident.

Merida's skills went beyond just impressive archery skill though, as she proved very adept with handling a sword as well, when she drew a shining blade of her own and proceeded to cut down any Heartless that got a little too close for her liking. It was not just used a matter of keeping her enemies at a distance though, as she would sometimes charge in and slash at some Bolt Towers without much prompting as well, if for no other reason than to either conserve her supply of arrows or a desire to just finish the job a little more quickly than she would by shooting at the Heartless. Still, in spite of all their hard work and Merida's greatly appreciated help, when the team finally made it to throne, there were still a lot of Heartless left in the room, and the three Keybearers were starting to tire out a little.

"There's just no end to these curs," Merida growled as she prepared another arrow to fire, not knowing that the magic keeping her here was starting to run out on them.

Xion did notice though, and did not hesitate to alert her brothers to this new problem. "We're not gonna last much longer if she goes back to her world now," Roxas stated once he had heard his sister's report. "Sis, don't you think now might be a good time to use your Valor Form and join in on the fun of using two Keyblades?"

"I can't use magic while I'm in Valor Form, remember? If I power up now, I'll end up canceling out the summon early," Xion reminded him.

"I don't really think that matters since it's going to end pretty soon anyways," Sora pointed out. He soon backtracked though, as he remembered, "Xion has a point though. She's the best at magic between the three of us, and we need her to keep giving us that kind of support."

"Sora, you're the best at magic between the three of us," Roxas corrected.

"I'm the most powerful, maybe, but I can't balance my magic abilities with my regular combat abilities like Xion can."

While the three continued trying to figure out how to get rid of the remaining Bolt Towers, Queen Minnie had started scanning the throne for something, running her hand along the underside of one of the armrests. Eventually, her fingers brushed over the switch she had been trying to locate, and she quickly pressed it, causing the platform that they and the throne were currently resting on to start slowly sliding to one side, much to the others' surprise. As the platform continued moving, a brilliant light suddenly started shinning out from beneath it, and it only grew stronger even without the opening getting bigger. Eventually, the light became so bright that the others had to shield their eyes. When it finally died down enough for them to look again, they saw that all the Heartless had been vaporized, leaving the audience chamber completely empty save for the five of them.

"What in the name of Dunbroch just happened," Merida asked, only to then notice how she appeared to be fading away. "And why am I suddenly turning into a spirit?"

"Its okay, Merida; you're not turning into a spirit. You're just going back home," Xion explained to the princess. "But I do hope we can see you again soon, or be able to call you for help if we need you again."

Merida smiled happily and said, "Aye, you certainly can, Xion. Anything to get out and have a real adventure without my mum nagging at me on how a princess should be acting."

With that last bit of information shared, Merida finally disappeared, leaving the remaining four in the audience chamber. Sora was just about to ask Minnie about what that amazing light had been, when Xion came over and held out the summon charm to him. "Sorry for using this without asking," she apologized as she attempted to return the charm to Sora. "When I saw you go down and drop it, I just couldn't help but react."

Sora glanced between Xion and the charm for a second or two before he finally smiled and said, "You keep it, Xion. I think it might suit you a lot better than it would have me." His generosity earned him a brilliant smile of thanks from Xion, clearly showing she was excited at the prospect of getting to use the summon charm again soon, but he did not linger on that for too long. They still had some important questions for the queen. "What exactly was that light just now, Your Majesty?"

"And where did it come from," Roxas asked. He knew that it was from some place that had been hidden beneath the throne's platform, but he still wanted to know about the actual location itself before they went inside.

"The room below is called the Hall of the Cornerstone," Minnie explained. "Within it lies a very powerful and precious artifact called the Cornerstone of Light, and it's thanks to that artifact's power that our castle has always been safe from worlds that are evil."

"The Cornerstone of Light?" Sora repeated in awe.

"Yes, and sadly, the Hall of the Cornerstone is where our recent troubles began," Minnie confirmed with a sad sigh.

"What do you mean," Xion asked.

Minnie just proceeded to walk down the stairs that had been opened up to them, and said, "It would be easier for you to see for yourselves."

---

The four ended up waiting for Ventus, Donald, and Goofy to get back before Queen Minnie led all of them down into the Hall of the Cornerstone. Queen Minnie knew that the three would know where to go when they saw the entrance left open, but she did not want to explain the situation more than once, so it only made sense to wait a little longer before going inside. Thankfully, it was a very short wait, and as soon as the other three had arrived, the queen led the Keyblade Legion into the Hall of the Cornerstone. Of course, no one failed to notice the absence of the other two members in Ventus's group.

"Where did Max and Della run off to," Sora asked just after they had begun descending the stairs into the chamber beneath the castle.

"They wanted to make sure that the townspeople were okay, and since things seemed to be relatively under control here, they figured this would be the best chance they had to leave the castle so they could check things out," Ventus explained. He then turned his attention forward just in time to see that they had entered the chamber, and immediately let out a gasp at the sight before him. "What in the worlds…"

No one needed to ask Ventus what had him so shocked, because it was clear to see for all of them. The Hall of the Cornerstone was much darker inside than one would expect an artifact of light to be, and all around the room were large, thorny vines that only seemed to continue growing without end. Aside from the vines though, there was only one other thing in the room, and that had been what captured the attention of the youngest members of the Keyblade Legion. The item in question was a large orb resting on a pure white pedestal, and said orb gave off a brilliant glow that seemed to shine with the light of both the sun and the stars. Fitting since the orb itself seemed to have a star-lit sky held within it, and it did not take much guessing to figure out what this thing could be.

"This is the castle's cherished Cornerstone of Light," Minnie announced for all who were not already familiar with it.

"Whoa," Roxas and Sora both gasped in awe.

"It's beautiful," Xion whispered.

"I could already feel the light from upstairs after the queen opened the passageway, but now that I'm standing next to it," Sora observed aloud, trailing off at the end since he could not find the words to properly explain what he felt and saw. "Ven, have you ever seen this thing before?"

"Once, a few years ago during my training. I had asked Mickey why this world seemed so peaceful for the most part, save for one or two incidents, and he brought me down here to show me the Cornerstone," Ventus confessed to all. "If you think it's impressive now, you should see and feel how powerful the Cornerstone normally is."

"You mean it's usually even stronger than this," Roxas asked in surprise. The Cornerstone already radiated with the most powerful light he had ever come across to date, save for maybe the light held by the Princesses of Heart, and despite this, Ventus claimed that it was not even at full power! He could hardly believe it to be possible, and Xion and Sora seemed just as surprised as him.

"Yes. I'm sure Minnie already told you this, but it's thanks to the Cornerstone that creatures like the Heartless are normally unable to come to this world, but something has caused its power to be weakened," Ventus observed as he tried to get a better measure for the Cornerstone's current strength, just to gauge how weak it was in comparison to what he remembered its normal state to be.

While he did that, Xion turned an accusatory glare on the thorns surrounding them and stated, "I think I've got a pretty good idea why the Cornerstone has suddenly grown weak."

"I don't know about that, kiddo," Ventus dismissed. "Yes, there's a very distinct darkness within these plants, but not nearly enough to weaken the Cornerstone. Whatever they are, they're more likely a product of whatever's behind the Cornerstone's current state, not the cause itself."

"Yes, that's the same thing I thought as well," Minnie told them. "I'm not sure where these thorns came from, but they are clearly the work of someone very evil. I wonder what all this could mean for the castle and our world though."

No one had an answer for her, so instead, they all simply slapped on their figurative thinking caps as they studied the vines and the rest of the room a little more. As their survey continued, Goofy let out a small hum of wonder that caught everyone's attention, prompting Donald to ask, "What's the matter?"

"I'm not sure why, but I feel like I've seen these creepy vines somewhere before," Goofy told them as he scratched his head in an attempt to place the memory.

Roxas and Xion just exchanged blank looks, since they could not recall a moment with these guys where they might have seen plants like these, but from the way that Ventus, Sora, and Donald all furrowed their brows in thought; it was most likely safe to assume that they had seen them at some point during their last adventure together. "Now that you mention it, I think I'm getting the same feeling," Sora confessed, proving the twins' suspicion.

"Yeah, and I think that it was in another castle too," Donald added, not that the information really helped with placing the memory. "Jiminy, is there anything in your journal that might help us?"

"I wish there was, but don't forget, our visit at Castle Oblivion caused all of the entries in my old journal to be erased, and now, the only thing left in it is the reminder I wrote about thanking Naminé," Jiminy reminded the magician.

"Large thorns…In a castle," Ventus mused under his breath, feeling like the answer was right on the tip of his tongue. When he finally when an idea did start to form, his eyes widened at the realization, and he gasped, "No…It couldn't be!"

Before anyone could inquire on what Ventus had thought of, an explosion of green fire suddenly burst into existence between the heroes and the Cornerstone. When the blaze died down, all their eyes had become the size of dinner plates at the sight of a projection of a very familiar, dark fairy, clad in her usual black and violet robes and horned headdress, magic staff firmly in hand, and a sinister grin etched onto her face.

"Maleficent!" Donald squawked.

"No way," Sora whispered. "I thought we destroyed her a year ago."

Sadly, no one could find it in themselves to lie and tell Sora they were seeing things, for the mistress of all evil was indeed standing before them in all of her dark glory. Or at least, a projection of her was, but that served as more than enough proof that Maleficent had returned. The former leader of the Villains Council that most of the team had faced a year ago swept her gaze over the chamber before she finally set her sights on the heroes, and mockingly said, "Well, well, well. What have we here? If it isn't the wretched Keyblade holders, master and student, and their pitiful lackeys." Her eyes then focused on Roxas and Xion for a spell, nearly prompting the two to summon their Keyblades out of instinct, before she added, "And unless my eyes deceive me, you've gained two more little followers as well."

"Who're you calling followers?" Xion demanded, and Roxas could not help but place a hand on her shoulder out of worry that she might try to jump at the projection.

"So this is the 'mighty' Keyblade Legion I've heard about? I'm hardly impressed. You're nothing more than children and pathetic fools," Maleficent continued on, acting like she had not heard Xion at all.

That reaction may have annoyed Xion a little more, but it definitely ticked off Donald. "What?! Who're you calling pathetic?!" he snapped as he called out his staff. "I'll show you!"

Before anyone could stop him, Donald had already rushed forward to try and jump Maleficent, despite the cries to wait or stop from the others. He really should have listened, because he ended up going right through the projection and crashing into the Cornerstone's pedestal, to no one's surprise. "We tried to tell you, Donald," Ventus lightly chided with a sigh before he focused his attention and a glare on Maleficent. "It's nothing more than a projection. A clear sign that the Cornerstone still has some power left in it or that someone's still too much of a coward to do her own dirty work in person."

"Doesn't matter," Sora dismissed. "We've beaten her once, and we can do it again."

"Brave words, boy, but all in good time. I promise you'll all be able to partake of my vengeance, but you must be patient," Maleficent promised. After a short pause to gaze at everyone in the room that she was not at least a little familiar with, she then added, "And rest assured, anyone close to you shall not be spared of my wrath."

"Wait, you mean you're going to come after us just because we're friends with the guys who defeated and nearly destroyed you before?" Roxas questioned. His disbelief melted into a mocking smirk of his own as he finished, "I don't know if that's sad or just incredibly petty for an all-powerful villainess like you."

"In my experience, pettiness is a typically common trait among all villains," Ventus informed the younger blonde.

Maleficent scowled at both blondes for their remarks, and stated, "It would seem foolish bravery runs deeply in your family, Ventus."

"Oh for crying out loud…We're not related!" Roxas and Ventus chorused in annoyance.

"Enough!" Minnie interrupted, feeling that the insults and banter from the evil fairy needed to end. "Just what are you doing here, Maleficent?"

"Ah, Queen Minnie. Radiant, as always," Maleficent complimented with a short bow, though clearly there was very little if any respect in it. "I'm here on a property venture. I want this castle for my own. However, it's a bit too 'bright' for what I have in mind, so I suppose I'll just have to fill every room with my personal touch of darkness."

The others watched as Maleficent's projection reached out to the Cornerstone, only to be repelled by its light, and the Keyblade wielders all armed themselves in response, with Roxas opting to summon forth Oathkeeper as opposed to both of his Keyblades. They were not sure if they could harm the projection, but if there was a chance Maleficent could do anything through it, they intended to be ready for it. "Sorry, but the castle's not for sale. And you're definitely not welcome here," Ventus quipped.

"Not welcome?" Maleficent gasped in faux surprise. She then let out a brief laugh before saying, "Oh my…well isn't this awkward. But I'm certain that you'll be changing your minds about this castle's value to you soon enough."

"You'd better stop right now if you know what's good for you!" Queen Minnie threatened.

"Ooh, how frightening," Maleficent flinched back, returning to her mocking tones once again. Her smirk grew a little more afterwards as she declared, "Very well, I'll stop…Just as soon as the castle belongs to me."

With that and an echoing cackle, Maleficent's projection vanished in a flash of her signature green fires, but even after she was gone, they could all still her cackling at both them and the situation they found themselves in. Even after the laughter had ended, no one relaxed until they felt her specific signature of darkness fade away completely, and that was a little hard to determine, given the thorns had a bit of that same dark power within them.

Once they were certain she had left, the Keybearers dismissed their Keyblades, and Sora grumbled, "What a hag."

"You said it," Xion agreed.

"We'll worry about her later. Right now, we've got bigger problems," Ventus reminded them. "Maleficent may not be able to come here in person yet, but being able to send that projection at all is a sure sign of the Cornerstone's power getting weaker. Minnie, do you have any ideas on how Maleficent could be doing all this?"

"I'm afraid not, Ven," Queen Minnie sadly sighed. "Nothing like this has ever happened before. I looked through all the records in the library, but I couldn't find a single clue."

No one liked the sound of that, but Goofy did have an idea on how they could solve this mystery. "If we can't find anything on record in the library, then we should go ask somebody who knows lotsa stuff that ain't in any book."

"You mean Merlin the Wizard," Roxas cottoned on.

"Yeah! That's perfect! Merlin will definitely know what to do," Donald cheered.

"Then let's get back to the Kingdom and head over to Hollow Bastion right away," Xion encouraged, already leading the way back to the hangar.

"Wait!" shouted Ventus, making the team halt in their tracks. "Aside from pointing out that going back there on foot would mean we'd have to fight through whatever Heartless are still out there in spite of the Hall of the Cornerstone being opened up like it has been, taking the gummi ship out right now may be too risky. For all we know, we could just open this world up for more Heartless to get in, and with the Cornerstone not at all full strength, there's no way to know for sure if it'll be able to keep some of the stronger ones back."

As much as they hated to admit it, the others could see Ventus's point, and Roxas could not help but point out another potential problem. "Not to mention the Organization may try to take advantage of all this, too."

"I don't think we really have too much to worry about from Organization XIII in this case, kid. If we did, Pete would probably have been setting Nobodies and Heartless on us by now," Ventus assured him.

"Whether the Organization would be a problem or not doesn't really matter. If we can't take the Kingdom to Hollow Bastion, how are we going to get Merlin's help?" asked Sora.

That did seem like a pretty big problem, but to everyone's surprise, Ventus merely smiled knowingly and replied, "We don't, or at least, not all of us do." His words only served to confuse his team a little more, but he still pressed on with a new set of orders. "Sora and I will go to Hollow Bastion and get Merlin. The rest of you will stay here and keep an eye on things. If the Cornerstone loses any more power while we're gone, we'll need you four to keep the Heartless out of this room."

Despite still being pretty confused, Roxas, Xion, Donald, and Goofy still gave nods and salutes of understanding in response to Ven's orders. Sora on the other hand remained completely confused, while Queen Minnie looked concerned. "Ven, are you sure?" the mouse queen asked.

"Whether I am or not doesn't matter. If we want to pull this off with the least amount of risk, we don't have a choice," Ventus replied, and Minnie could not help but nod in agreement. With the queen's blessing given, Ventus proceeded to rush out of the room, while saying, "Come on, Sora."

"Uh…right," Sora acknowledged as he followed after his master, still not entirely sure what he had in mind for their travel plans.

Sora's confusion persisted without end all the way until the point where he and Ventus had made it back out into the castle gardens again, and instead of ebbing away, it grew even more when he saw Ventus making no moves towards the entrance to the gummi ship hangar. Then again, he did say that it was too risky to take the gummi ship, but Sora still had no clue how else they could reach another world, and he said so. "Ven, how are we supposed to get to Hollow Bastion without a gummi ship?" asked Sora.

Ventus just smirked, enjoying how clueless Sora appeared to be. "Sora, did you forget that there's more than one way to travel between worlds, besides using gummi ships? Namely, one such method that I told you about during our last journey?"

Ven's questions made Sora think for a minute. Even without everything that happened in Castle Oblivion, Sora had to admit that he had some difficulty remembering everything that happened on their last journey if for no other reason than how so much had happened over the course of said journey. Thankfully, it did not take him too long to piece together the memory he needed, and his eyes went wide with surprise as soon as he did. "Ven…You don't mean…"

"Yep," Ventus confirmed. "We're gonna fly there on our Keyblade Gliders."

"Are you serious?!" Sora exclaimed. "But I thought I wasn't ready for that kind of thing yet. Or that flying between worlds on our Keyblade Gliders was too dangerous right now."

"Sora, I don't know if you've noticed, but your training has kinda been running on a rushed pace since day one," Ventus pointed out. He knew that would not really do much to reassure Sora on the latter fact, so he proceeded to add on, "Plus, how do you think I'd been getting around to other worlds while you were taking your year-long nap? I've been scouting out the lanes between, the secret pathways between worlds that can only be accessed by Keyblade wielders via Keyblade Gliders, and I can safely say that there is no longer any danger in using them anymore. Trust me."

Sora was still a little hesitant on this idea, but for as long as he had known Ventus, he had not once done anything to make the young man doubt him. So, Sora nodded, and then let Ventus proceed to explain how to use his Keyblade Glider for travel between worlds. It was not really a lengthy lesson, and pretty much consisted of Ventus just telling the kid that he would need to wear his armor at all times while traveling through the lanes between, and that he should avoid trying too much fancy flying since there was little to no gravity in said location. Even if it had been long, Ventus doubted that it would have mattered, because Sora took to it all like a fish to water, and in time at all, he and his first apprentice were on their way to Hollow Bastion.

---

"Wow, we really made great time," Sora observed as he and Ventus walked down the streets of Hollow Bastion and up to Merlin's house, and barely more than a handful of minutes after leaving the castle. "Is Hollow Bastion really that close to Disney Town, or is traveling between worlds by Keyblade Glider just that fast?"

"Eh, a little of both, I think," Ventus shrugged. He quickly knocked on the door after saying that, and upon receiving no answer, turned the knob to find it open. "Hello? Anybody here," Ventus called out after opening the door up and then stepping inside with Sora.

"Hey, Merlin! We really need your help," Sora called out. "Disney Castle's in danger."

No sooner had Sora uttered that last sentence, a puff of smoke suddenly billowed into being behind the two, and the knowledgeable wizard himself appeared out from it. "What is all that racket," Merlin grumbled, until he saw the two Keybearers. "Oh-ho-ho! I thought—oh, it's just you boys. Back so soon?"

"Yeah, and I'm afraid this isn't a social visit, Merlin," Ventus informed him.

"We've got a huge problem. Maleficent's back," Sora reported.

"What? Where," gasped Merlin.

"We don't know for sure, but we just had a brief chat with her inside Disney Castle, after fighting off some Heartless that had invaded it," explained Ventus.

"Oh dear…Tell me everything you can. Actually, no, don't explain. Perhaps it'd be easier if I just see for myself," Merlin determined.

"I wish we could take you there to show you, but we didn't come here in the Kingdom. How're we supposed to get you back there," Sora asked. His answer came quick enough when Ventus tapped his shoulder, and then waved at their surroundings for some reason. When Sora turned around, he was shocked to see that they had somehow been transported back to the Hall of the Cornerstone, and all their friends were staring at them in equal surprise. "Oh, right…Wizard magic."

"Well, it's nice to see you've grown a little wiser, Sora," Merlin chuckled, though that made it hard for Sora to tell whether or not the wizard was teasing him.

As Merlin made his way over to the Cornerstone, the rest of the Legion hurried over to Sora and Ventus, with Xion saying, "I'd ask if you guys even left, but…Well, Merlin's here, so that does answer that question."

"How fast were you guys going, anyway," Roxas inquired.

"Apparently a lot faster than I thought we had been," Sora shrugged, showing he was just as clueless on that as his fellow wielders.

A sudden cough from Merlin brought the conversation to an end, and the team all turned to see that the wizard had drawn his wand and started waving it about in preparation for a spell. The next thing anyone knew, a glowing, silver and grey door with a crown-shaped frame and no back materialized in a puff of smoke just a few feet away from where they were all standing. "Ah, there we are," Merlin nodded, satisfied with his work. "This should do it."

"This should do what? What is that, Merlin," Xion asked.

"My dear, that is a gateway to a very special world. Someone in that world is responsible for what's going on in this castle. Of that, I'm certain," Merlin explained to everyone.

"So all we have to do is go through, find whoever's causing the problem, and make them stop, right," Roxas guessed.

"Oh boy!" Donald cheered.

"We knew we could count on you, Merlin," Goofy agreed.

"Now, now! Wait just a moment. There's more to this than that," Merlin interrupted before they got anymore hasty. "The perpetrators must be stopped, of course, but there's something else to do first. Somewhere in that world, there should be another door that's identical to this one, and I believe our enemies are utilizing that door."

"Which means that as long as it stays open, the castle will remain in danger," Xion deduced. "So if we want to stop them, we need to find that other door, and make sure the enemy can't ever use it again."

"You catch on quick, my dear," Merlin commended. "Yes, that is exactly what you must do, first and foremost, if you want to put a stop to this. If any one of you can lock it up tight with your Keyblades, we'll succeed in saving the castle and restoring the Cornerstone of Light. Of course, it would be even better if you were to lock it with all of your Keyblades, but that should really be far more excessive than what's necessary."

"Got it," Sora nodded in understanding.

"You can count on us," Donald saluted, while the others all affirmed their understanding with silent nods. Although, some of them still had a question or two about this plan.

"Is there anything else we should know before going in," asked Ventus.

"Oh yes, there is, and this is by far the most important detail. You see, you're heading into a very special world. While you're there, the nature of that world may tempt you to do something dark. You must resist that temptation at all costs," Merlin cautioned them.

"What do you mean by that? You're not sending us into some place in the Realm of Darkness, are you," Sora asked, suddenly a little more worried about going through this strange, magic door.

"Oh heavens no! This world is very much still within the Realm of Light," Merlin happily assured them. "But as far as the rest of your question… Well, you'll know soon enough. I have faith in you, my lads and lass."

The Keyblade Legion exchanged wary looks with each other, silently questioning what Merlin's warning could mean, but ultimately decided to leave it for later. They were bound to find out after getting to this special world, and besides, if this place held the key to saving Disney Castle, they could not afford to waste too much time standing around here. With their path forward clearly in sight, Sora and Ventus stepped forward and pried the silver door open with a couple of strong tugs. Once it had opened, the Keyblade Legion stepped inside, until they disappeared in a brilliant light as the door slammed shut behind them.

"Good luck, Keyblade Legion," Queen Minnie prayed with folded hands.

---

"Ow! Hey, watch it! That was my foot," snapped Xion.

"Sorry. My bad," Roxas quickly apologized.

"I can't see a thing in here. Hurry up and open the door, will ya," complained Donald.

"Working on it! This thing is heavier than you think," Ventus retorted.

"Almost…there," groaned Sora, when suddenly the door in front of them sprang open, and they all tumbled out into the middle of an open field. Donald and Goofy were lucky enough to land on either side of the group, but the four Keyblade wielders had the misfortune of ending up in a dog-pile, and Sora in particular did not like his position in said pile. "Seriously? Again? Why am I always on the bottom when this happens?"

"I wouldn't say every time, Sora. I mean, there was Neverland," Ventus reminded him as everyone started to get up.

Sora probably would have argued that had been only one time out of many others, but Roxas beat him to the punch by asking, "Are we just not going to talk about all the strange noises we heard while going through the door? I'm pretty sure I heard a horn going off at some point."

No one really knew what to say to that. They had noticed the various cartoon noises that surrounded them as they were making their way through the door, but they had not really been paying too much attention to them at the time. The weird space that they had been traveling through after entering the door from the other side had been surprisingly cramped, so their priority at the time was to make sure that they had not stepped on or hurt each other while trying to get through. Right when it seemed like one of them was going to say something, Goofy spotted something in front of them.

"Hey, look! There's the Cornerstone of Light," Goofy pointed out for them, and they all turned to see the artifact in question was indeed sitting right in front of them. Only instead of the pedestal that it had been on before, they saw it rested on a series of small blocks.

Ventus and Sora quickly moved closer to get a better look, and when they were right next to it, the former could not help but smile and say, "Now this is more like it. You guys feel that? That's what the Cornerstone feels like at full strength."

"Wow…You weren't kidding, Ven. It really is a lot more powerful at its normal strength," Sora acknowledged, reaching a hand out to the Cornerstone, not to touch it, but to better drink in the power of its light.

"Um, guys, not to interrupt, but I've got another question," Roxas announced. "Who turned off the color?"

Hearing that, the team finally took a proper look at their surroundings, and saw that Roxas was not joking around. Everything around them looked like a page in a coloring book before it was filled in, or an old-time movie or television show, and it did not stop with just the world either. When they took a look at themselves, the Keyblade Legion discovered that they too had literally lost all of their color, save for the basic black and white. Not only that, but some of them had even gone through other cosmetic changes in both body and attire.

Sora for example, had been changed into his old outfit from his first journey, only this time it seemed to fit him perfectly, while Ventus's beard looked like more like something that had been drawn on his face. Donald and Goofy had also ended up changed into different outfits, with the former being decked out in a sailor suit, and Goofy with nothing more than his hat and a sleeveless shirt with only one button. The final person to have a change of clothes, surprisingly, had been Xion. Instead of her usual tank-top, vest, shorts, socks, shoes, and scarf, Xion's outfit now consisted of a black, sleeveless, double-buttoned collared shirt and a black belt, a short white skirt, and black boots that reached her mid-shin that were white on the upper fifth. In a way, the outfit Xion wore reminded Roxas a little of Naminé's attire, while Sora could swear that there was a little bit of Kairi's style mixed in as well. The one constant among all of them was how their bodies had changed so that they were more cartoon-like, with thinner arms and legs, rounder shoulders, and somewhat flatter hands, and their outfits had become much simpler and less detailed than they would normally be. Even the armor pieces that the Keybearers were relieved to see still present on them seemed to lack their usual amount of detail, so it came as no surprise that they all took some time to look themselves over a little.

"What's going on here? How come everything's turned black and white," Sora asked as he looked over himself.

"Must be a form change to help us fit into this world," Ventus reasoned. "Kinda like the ones we went through in Atlantica or Halloween Town."

"You know, ever since I saw the images of you guys on those worlds, I've kinda wondered what Roxas and I would look like if we went to those worlds," Xion admitted with a day-dream look in her eyes and a smile on her face.

Roxas on the other hand had a very different opinion on this matter. "Too bad you're going to have to keep wondering in at least one case, because there is no way I'm letting you anywhere near Atlantica if I can help it."

"What?! Why," protested Xion.

"Why do you think? Because I don't want my sister to go swimming around practically half naked," Roxas insisted, his tone of voice making it clear that he would not be hearing any arguments on the matter.

Xion let out a childish whine when she heard that, but did still understand why Roxas felt the way he did. She doubted that telling him it would not be that much different from how she would look if she were wearing a swimsuit, save for having her legs turned into fins, and instead just put more focus into being able to experience her first world-based form change. "Well, either way, I will admit that at least this isn't a bad look for me," Xion confessed. "It's actually kinda cute. Maybe I should see if I can throw something similar together later on."

The boys all took some time to take in Xion's new appearance after she said that, and had to admit that they did agree with her opinion on this. She did look pretty good in that outfit; despite how it did not really seem like a very battle-oriented attire at first glance. Their observations of each other and their recent form changes had to end sooner or later though, and they did when Donald finally admitted something that had been bothering him. "Hey, this feels kinda like…um…uh…"

"Déjà vu?" Goofy guessed.

"Yeah, that's it!"

"Really? Have you been here before?" Sora asked the two.

Before anyone could answer, they all heard someone running past them, and they all turned to see a very big guy with cat like features, including whiskers and a tail, and decked out in overalls with a broken strap, and a tall sailor's hat. The minute they saw this guy, they all knew in an instant that this could only be Pete, and from the look of things, he was in a very big hurry. Though not so much of a hurry as they originally thought, since he skidded to a stop and turned to face them. Instead of belting out his annoying laugh or threatening them though, they were surprised to hear him actually ask them one of the last things they ever expected to come out of his mouth.

"Hey you! Seen any bad guys around here?" Pete asked while waving to them. As confused as they were by his question, the Keyblade Legion still gave him an answer. That answer being the six all pointing right at him. Pete seemed both shocked and offended by their accusation, and shook his fist at them while growling, "Why I oughta…!"

In response, the Keyblade Legion all drew their weapons, ready for a fight, but it ended up unnecessary. Instead of starting a brawl like he normally would, Pete actually stopped short and huffed, "Bah! I don't have time to waste on punks like you, so I guess I'll go easy on ya this time."

Not one single member of the team knew how to react to that, and in their shock, they could not do anything more than watch as Pete ran off in the direction of the pier. At least, that is where they assumed he was going, based on the sign posts around the path he took. "Okay…that was weird," Ventus noted aloud when he finally snapped out of it.

"But on the bright side, we found our villain," reasoned Sora.

"Then what're we standing around here for? Let's go after him," Xion insisted.

"Wait, are you guys sure about…" Roxas started to ask, but the others had already run ahead before he could finish. "Okay. Guess we're doing this," he sighed in resignation as he started following them.

It ended up being a very short chase, as the pier had been right around the corner from where they were before, and Pete was just standing on the dock looking out at the river. If they had stopped to study things carefully, they probably would have noticed how his shoulders were sagging a little, like he was sad or something, but right now, all they were all deep into mission-mode and only focused on stopping their villainous target. Their approach went unnoticed for quite a while, and even when they finally came onto the small dock to stand behind him, Pete seemed to pay them no mind at all. Even when they made it blatantly clear that he was not alone, Pete did not even spare them a glance, until finally, Ventus of all people got frustrated to the point where he actually threw something at Pete, making the oversized villain spin around angrily.

"What's with you squirts? Ya got some kinda bone to pick with me," Pete demanded.

"More than one, Whiskers," Ventus responded with a frown, getting Pete even more riled up than before.

"Them's fighting words!" growled Pete as he started spinning his arm around like a windmill, likely in preparation for a punch.

"Yeah, them's fighting words," Ventus snapped in return. He paused a second later and turned to his friends in confusion to ask, "Why did I just say that?"

"How should we know?" Sora, Xion, and Roxas all asked at the same time, while Donald and Goofy merely shrugged.

Any lingering ideas of fight were quickly killed off after that at the sound of a whistle. When Pete heard it, he rushed off the dock to try and spot the source, much to everyone's disbelief. They could not believe that Pete was actually ignoring them in favor of some far off noise, but if it did catch his interest, then that probably was not good news, so the Keyblade Legion quickly raced around to cut him off.

"And where do you think you're going," Xion demanded with her Keyblade out and ready for action.

"I've got a few ideas on where he should go," Sora quipped as he did the same.

"Um, guys, I really don't think…" Roxas tried to interject, still feeling like something was off about all this, but he was once again ignored.

"You all hang back this time. I'll handle him, personally," Ventus growled. He was still pretty upset about that trouncing Pete gave him back in the Underworld, and there was no way he was passing up the chance to pay him back.

Pete growled right back at Ventus in response to his challenge, and the next thing anyone knew, the two had charged each other and vanished into a large, cartoonish dust cloud as they proceeded to battle one another. Even though the dust cloud hid the actual fight from view, with only sounds of punches, slashes, steam whistles, and other cartoon fighting noises escaping from it, the rest of the team were still somehow able to see what was going on perfectly fine, and they could only wince, flinch, and at some points even cover their eyes at the sight of the brutal beat down going on in front of them. The only thing that made this less painful to watch, if only marginally, was the comfort in knowing that it was not Ventus who suffered the most injury in this fight, if you could call it that.

"Oh, that's gonna leave a mark," Sora muttered at one point.

"And this is getting ridiculous," Roxas insisted, much to everyone's surprise. "Haven't you guys noticed by now how we're not doing anything?"

"Because Ven told us he could handle it alone," Donald reminded him.

"No…well, yeah, that is true, but I mean, we're not doing anything for another reason, or has it escaped your notice how we seem to be lacking a few little friends of ours by the name of the Heartless," Roxas pointed out at last.

Now that Roxas had mentioned it, the others did realize that there were not any Heartless around, and it had gone well past the point when Pete would normally summon them out. Coupled together with how easily Ventus was beating Pete, and they had to wonder if this really was the same big bully that had been giving them so much trouble ever since that run-in with him at Yen Sid's tower. At the sound of a loud bell going off, the five turned back to where Ventus and Pete had been fighting, just in time to see Ventus had claimed victory, not through magic or an attack with his Keyblade, but simply by punching Pete square in the jaw with his free hand.

Ventus watched as his opponent went rolling over the ground before falling flat on his back with a hard thump, and soon after had adopted his own bewildered look. "Okay, what is going on here," Ventus asked aloud. "Even back when I first met him, Pete put up more of a fight than this, and I never even had to fight him back then!"

Pete groaned and growled in response as he struggled to sit himself upright again, but once he was upright, he asked yet another unexpected question. "What's you punks' beef with me anyway? Matter of fact…" He paused to hum in wonder as he studied the six and asked, "Who are ya? You new around here?"

"Oh cut the act already," Sora told him, now getting annoyed with how little sense everything was making right now.

Unlike her older brother, Xion took some time to study Pete and the confused look in his eyes, until she finally concluded, "I don't think he's acting." She ignored the surprise her friends and family had directed at her in favor of focusing on Pete and asked, "Do you…really not recognize us?"

"Umm…Should I?" Pete asked in return, only to jump with a start when he heard that same whistle from earlier again. He hurriedly started to stand again so he could chase after the sound, but he soon realized that getting up too fast was a bad idea for him right now when something cracked. "Ooh, ow! My achin' back!"

"Oh my gosh! Are you okay," Xion asked as she rushed over to check on him, much to everyone's surprise.

"Xion! What're you doing?" Donald demanded.

"Come on, you guys. He's really hurt, and this whole thing just feels really off," Xion insisted before she set to work trying to figure out where Pete was hurt most.

"Ya know, she has a point there," Goofy agreed as he addressed both his friends and the cat-man Xion was now checking over for any serious injuries. "Are you sure you're Pete?"

"Well, of COURSE I'm Pete. I'm the captain of the steamboat. So stop botherin' me, see?" Pete shouted back as he shoved off Xion's offer of aid. His back ended up cracking again afterwards, but before Xion could move to try and check him over again, Pete had already waved him off. "I said stop botherin' me, so hit the road! I gotta go find the little runt what stole my boat!"

Xion slowly backed away after that, hands up in surrender, until she was back with the rest of her group right as they started to huddle up. "Gawrsh, maybe we made a mistake," Goofy reasoned.

"Yeah, I'm starting to think the same thing, too. And like Roxas said, he never even called any Heartless during the fight, and he still hasn't," Sora confessed.

"I tried to tell you guys something seemed off about this," said Roxas.

The others had the decency to bow their heads in shame, knowing that Roxas was right to call them out for not listening to him, and Ventus considered that reason enough to go over to try apologizing to the steamboat captain. "Uh…Sorry about attacking you like that, Captain," the blonde said sheepishly. "We thought you were someone else that's been giving us a lot of trouble lately."

Pete turned to them with a frown on his face, apparently not too eager to accept any apologies, before he stood up to tower over the group as best he could, and growled, "Oh yeah? Well, if you're really sorry, then go find my steamboat."

"Y-yes sir," Sora quickly agreed, not really too eager to upset the captain anymore than they already had.

Pete would have probably gone on for a little longer had his back not cracked again, and this time, Xion did not give him any time to protest. She just marched right up while calling up a healing spell in her hands, and then applied said spell to Captain Pete's back. "Hey, I thought I told you to…" Pete started to yell, but he stopped short when he felt the pain in his back fading away into nothing. "Oh…Oh, hey, that feels pretty good, actually," Pete admitted once the pain had finally gone. "Thanks for that, kid."

"No problem. It's the least we could do after that whole mix-up," Xion assured him. "So, I don't suppose you could tell us what this place is, could you? Like you said, we're new around here, and we'd like to at least know about the name of whatever town we're in."

Pete hummed in wonder before saying, "Don't know about any towns, but you folks are on Timeless River, a fun little place where everyone's always pals and havin' fun."

The others exchanged looks of confusion after hearing that. After hearing what Merlin said and seeing the Cornerstone up on that hill earlier, they had all figured that this place would have some connection to Disney Town or Disney Castle. If Captain Pete was telling the truth though, then no such places existed around here. Just another mystery on the pile of this adventure, and it did not seem like the number would decrease any time soon.

---

After ensuring that Captain Pete would be alright, the team departed from the pier and decided to regroup on the hill where they first entered this world, thinking that they might be able to get a better sense of how to solve this case if they hung around the Cornerstone for a little bit. Too bad for them, they did not really have any ideas on what or who to look for anymore.

"I guess it would've been too easy for it to be Pete, but still…I thought for sure he was our bad guy," Sora mused aloud.

"Hey, I doubt anyone would blame you for thinking like that, Sora. Pete doesn't exactly have a spotless record, after all," Ventus reassured him. "If anything, I'm a bit disappointed in myself. Here I was spending most of the last year trying to teach you not to go rushing into things without thinking it through, and then next thing I know, I turn around and do the exact same thing myself."

"Maybe that just means Sora's becoming a bad influence on you," teased a grinning Xion, prompting most of the others to laugh a little. Said laughter only got worse when Ventus and Sora both pouted like little kids who were just scolded.

"Well, how about we go and find Cap'n Pete's steamboat? That might help make ya feel a little better," Goofy suggested.

"I don't know…" Ventus mused.

"Well, we did say we would," Sora reasoned.

"Wait a minute! We've got a door to find, remember," Donald reminded them.

"Donald's right. I don't want to be that guy, but the situation back at the castle's a little more important than a stolen boat," Roxas pointed out.

Everyone had to agree with Roxas's assessment, until Xion brought up another point for them. "What if we need to ride the steamboat to reach the door? Because I'm not seeing any doors around here aside from the one we came through."

As the group surveyed the area, they noticed that Xion had a very good point. The only door like the one Merlin had conjured up that they could see was the one that they came into this world from. Aside from that, the only things that really stood out were a few random people that Ventus, Donald, and Goofy could swear looked a lot like some of their friends back in Disney Town, and a few signs here and there around the field. One of which, Ventus could not help but notice looked a lot like a castle, and had something about a construction site written on it. He figured he should take a closer look at it when Sora spotted something that definitely seemed out of place in this mysterious world.

"Hey guys, check it out," Sora called out as he pointed to something in the distance.

From what they could tell, the thing Sora spotted looked like some kind of window, or a small stage with the curtains down, and a small pulley-rope on one side. What really stood out about it was how it just floated in the air without any kind of supports to speak of and the faint glow around it. Deciding that they should get a closer look, the team grouped up around the weird mini-stage to try and figure out what the deal was with it. Unfortunately, they could not see anything of significance about it aside from the obvious, but they could hear some noises coming from behind the curtain, so that had to mean there was something inside.

Trying to peak through the curtain without opening it up proved to be completely fruitless, as Sora and Xion found out after giving it a try, so Donald decided to take matters into his own hands, and gave the pulley a hard tug. At once, the curtains lifted much like the curtains on a theater stage, and revealed a movie screen behind it that began to play back a very interesting scene for them.

---

Gathered around on the hilltop that the Cornerstone rested on, were four groups of different Heartless, each standing before a floating window with interesting pictures on the top of them. Going from left to right, the first window had the picture of a construction site, the second was of a person tied to the ground, the third depicted a building on fire, and the final window had an image of a house with a mouse's head painted over it. One by one, each window popped open, and after the Heartless made their way inside, the windows snapped shut again, and promptly vanished like they had never been there in the first place.

As soon as the last window had vanished, the magic, glowing door on the other side of the Cornerstone began violently shaking until suddenly, the doors flung open, and deposited the Keyblade Legion out into the grassy field, with the four Keybearers ending up in a dog-pile. "Seriously? Again? Why am I always on the bottom when this happens?" Sora groaned from beneath his friends.

"I wouldn't say every time, Sora. I mean, there was Neverland," Ventus reminded him as everyone started to get up.

Sora probably would have argued that had been only one time out of many others, but Roxas beat him to the punch by asking, "Are we just not going to talk about all the strange noises we heard while going through the door? I'm pretty sure I heard a horn going off at some point."

No one really knew what to say to that. They had noticed the various cartoon noises that surrounded them as they were making their way through the door, but they had not really been paying too much attention to them at the time. The weird space that they had been traveling through after entering the door from the other side had been surprisingly cramped, so their priority at the time was to make sure that they had not stepped on or hurt each other while trying to get through. Right when it seemed like one of them was going to say something, Goofy spotted something in front of them.

"Hey, look! There's the Cornerstone of Light," Goofy pointed out for them, and they all turned to see the artifact in question was indeed sitting right in front of them. Only instead of the pedestal that it had been on before, they saw it rested on a series of small blocks.

Ventus and Sora quickly moved closer to get a better look, and when they were right next to it, the former could not help but smile and say, "Now this is more like it. You guys feel that? That's what the Cornerstone feels like at full strength."

"Wow…You weren't kidding, Ven. It really is a lot more powerful at its normal strength," Sora acknowledged, reaching a hand out to the Cornerstone, not to touch it, but to better drink in the power of its light.

"Um, guys, not to interrupt, but I've got another question," Roxas announced. "Who turned off the color?"

Hearing that, the team finally took a proper look at their surroundings, and saw that Roxas was not joking around. Everything around them looked like a page in a coloring book before it was filled in, or an old-time movie or television show, and it did not stop with just the world either. When they took a look at themselves, the Keyblade Legion discovered that they too had literally lost all of their color, save for the basic black and white. Not only that, but some of them had even gone through other cosmetic changes in both body and attire.

"What's going on here? How come everything's turned black and white," Sora asked as he looked over himself.

"Must be a form change to help us fit into this world," Ventus reasoned. "Kinda like the ones we went through in Atlantica or Halloween Town."

"You know, ever since I saw the images of you guys on those worlds, I've kinda wondered what Roxas and I would look like if we went to those worlds," Xion admitted with a day-dream look in her eyes and a smile on her face.

Roxas on the other hand had a very different opinion on this matter. "Too bad you're going to have to keep wondering in at least one case, because there is no way I'm letting you anywhere near Atlantica if I can help it."

"What?! Why," protested Xion.

"Why do you think? Because I don't want my sister to go swimming around practically half naked," Roxas insisted, his tone of voice making it clear that he would not be hearing any arguments on the matter.

Xion let out a childish whine when she heard that, but did still understand why Roxas felt the way he did. She doubted that telling him it would not be that much different from how she would look if she were wearing a swimsuit, save for having her legs turned into fins, and instead just put more focus into being able to experience her first world-based form change. "Well, either way, I will admit that at least this isn't a bad look for me," Xion confessed. "It's actually kinda cute. Maybe I should see if I can throw something similar together later on."

The boys all took some time to take in Xion's new appearance after she said that, and had to admit that they did agree with her opinion on this. She did look pretty good in that outfit; despite how it did not really seem like a very battle-oriented attire at first glance. Their observations of each other and their recent form changes had to end sooner or later though, and they did when Donald finally admitted something that had been bothering him. "Hey, this feels kinda like…um…uh…"

"Déjà vu?" Goofy guessed.

"Yeah, that's it!"

"Really? Have you been here before?" Sora asked the two. Right before anything more could happen though, everything suddenly vanished in a bright light, signaling an end to the scene that was playing back for the viewers.

---

Right when the scene they were watching had reached that end point, the screen went blank and the curtains dropped, signaling the end of the startling show. "What…What did we just see," Sora asked.

"Something that's now giving me a sense of déjà vu, but for an entirely different reason than I think Donald had," Roxas admitted.

"Except this time around, it had the added bonus of seeing Heartless goin' out at the start," Goofy pointed out.

"Before we came in," Donald finished.

"What could this mean," Xion asked on everyone's behalf. "Did we just watch a scene from the past that somebody was recording?"

"Let's see if we can watch it again. Maybe we'll get a clue from that," Roxas determined, and he quickly moved to use the pulley that Donald had tugged earlier. This time though, the magic-movie screen did not open, but instead, its glow merely went out, and they could only assume that meant that it was not going to provide them with anymore help. "Or…maybe not."

Everyone started crossing their arms and scratching their heads or chins in thought, until Ventus finally suggested, "Let's try and see if we can bring those weird windows back. We know the Heartless went somewhere through them, so if we do the same thing…"

"We might be able to stop the Heartless from causing any serious damage, which may have been what affected the Cornerstone," Sora caught on.

"But how are we supposed to do that? It's not like those weird windows are just going to pop up as soon as we turn around," Xion reasoned as she turned to face where the windows had been in the movie. Much to her surprise, when she did fully face the Cornerstone, she was surprised to see that the magic windows in question had in fact returned from wherever they had gone, and all she could say in response was, "I stand corrected."

As soon as the others heard that, they turned to see the same thing that Xion had, and had to smile a little at this turn of luck. "Well, we know where to go if we want to find bad guys now, so I say we go take care of the Heartless," Sora decided.

"And then what," Goofy asked.

"We'll have to figure that out as we go. Besides, if there's one thing we've all learned by now, it's that the Heartless always end up leading us to the big bad sooner or later," Ventus reasoned.

Everyone nodded in agreement with that sentiment; it was very accurate, and they then hurried over to better study the windows in order to decide which one they should go into first. As they were doing so, Sora actually had a thought. "You know, considering that there are only four of these windows, and we have four Keyblade wielders, why don't we just split up and take out the Heartless in each area all at once? One Keyblade wielder per window, and Donald and Goofy stay here to keep an eye on the Cornerstone?"

"I don't know, Sora. I get why we've had to split up as much as we've already had to, but this time…It feels a little too risky," said Xion, her expression very pensive just to show how concerned she was about the idea.

"Not to mention Merlin's warning about how this world would tempt us to do something dark. I know he said that this place isn't in the Realm of Darkness, but I'm still pretty worried," Roxas admitted.

"Roxas and Xion are right. Until we know exactly what Merlin had been referring to with his warning, we should try to stick together," Ventus insisted.

Sora did not really like having his idea dismissed so quickly, but he could see his friends' point. If this world did have some way of tempting them with darkness, or just doing something dark, then they were better off sticking together so they could look out for each other. So, with that settled, they went back to choosing a window to go through. In the end, they could not really see too much of a difference between the four options, aside from some minor differences in each location, and even that could barely be seen, so they just had to settle for picking one at random. Their final choice ended up being the window that showed an image of a construction site, and with a tap of Xion's Keyblade, the window opened up, and they all squeezed inside.

Upon going through the window, they found themselves high up in the scaffolding of a construction site, with sounds of machinery, hammers, and all other sorts of tools all around them in spite of the fact they could not see any of the workers. From a simple glance, it looked like they were at least somewhere in the middle of a town, but they could not see anyone else around. Then again, they were probably just too high up to be able to see the people down below, and it was more important that they find the Heartless anyways.

Still, it could not stop them Roxas from wondering aloud, "What do you think they're building?"

"Don't know, but whatever it is, it looks like it'll be something really big," Sora guessed.

The others had to agree with that assessment, but just when Xion was about to comment further on the matter, Goofy saw something falling down towards her from above, and shouted, "Xion, look out!"

After what happened in New York, Xion did not waste time looking for whatever Goofy's warning was about, and just dove to one side, narrowly avoiding getting flattened by a Heartless that looked like a big hammer on legs with arms and claws. She then braced herself for another attack, but the Heartless never got the chance. It ended up being too busy getting knocked over the side by someone who had come swinging down from above on a rope just when it had started preparing its attack. Everyone quickly looked up to where Xion's rescuer had gone, and they were all surprised by their identity.

"The King!" Donald cheered.

"Mickey!" Ventus grinned at the sight of the diminutive Keyblade king, for indeed, up on the scaffolding above them, and waving down with a smile on his face, was none other than King Mickey himself. Although, something about him seemed a little strange to some of them.

"Gee, he seems kinda different somehow," Goofy noted aloud.

Their questions about King Mickey's presence here and how he seemed different ended up being another mystery that they would have to put on hold, due to Roxas catching a glimpse of movement on the metal beams that were directly above them while he was looking up at him. He turned to said structure, and his eyes quickly narrowed at the sight of some more of the hammer-like Heartless, and they looked like they were getting ready to jump down to finish what their friend had started. "Heads up guys! We've got Heartless coming from above," Roxas alerted the others, and they all whipped out their weapons in preparation for the attacking Heartless. Roxas on the other hand only summoned Oathkeeper at first, and left his other hand free so he could wave back to Mickey. "Thanks for helping Xion! You really saved the day!"

"I'll say," Sora agreed right when the Heartless had landed on their platform. "Now, let's get those Heartless!"

With simultaneous nods of agreement, the team set to work in battling the Heartless, which Jiminy identified as Hammer Frames. A very appropriate name, and not just for the shape of their bodies. These new Heartless were intent on hammering the Keyblade Legion down to size, be it with direct hits or with the shockwaves that their attacks released when they hit the ground. Since the ground in questioning was little more than a wooden platform several stories up, that was not a good thing to have to deal with at the moment, and it became very apparent when some of them began to stumble a little when the platform began to violently tremble and shake. To make matters worse, it seemed like the Heartless were even going so far as to put most of their efforts into wrecking the construction site as opposed to destroying the Keyblade Legion, and the reason why was not hard to figure out.

"They're gonna wreck the whole construction site!" cried Donald as he used some wind magic to push some Hammer Frames off the scaffold.

"And if this thing collapses, we'll go down with it," Goofy added after repelling an attack with his shield, only to get clocked from behind by another Hammer Frame. "Ouch! Oh, why you bad old…"

Goofy's return attack on the sneaky Hammer Frame did relieve them of one more Heartless, but from where Roxas was standing, they were going to need a lot more than that to turn things around. Otherwise, the whole building would come crashing down on both them and the workers below. Too bad for him, there did not seem to be anything around them that could help in this situation, but as he thought that, his eyes came to rest on the rope support in the middle of the platform. Seeing that rope gave him an idea so crazy that it just might work, and he quickly moved as close to it as possible.

"Everybody, get ready to jump as high as you can," Roxas told them.

"What? Why?" questioned Ventus.

"Just do it! Trust me," Roxas insisted. Without giving anyone much more time to think, Roxas leapt up into the air, prompting the others to do the same right after. With his friends all airborne, Roxas faced to the support ropes and smacked them as hard as he could with Oblivion.

Seeing Roxas attack one of the only things keeping their platform from falling, the others had very understandable panicked reactions, until they saw that the ropes were still intact. To further add to their surprise, instead of breaking the ropes, Roxas's attack had ended up making the scaffolding give a very violent shake that served to knock the Heartless into the air with them, and the Hammer Frames could do little more than helplessly wave their arms about.

"Oh, now I get it," Ventus realized, finally caught onto to Roxas's plan. Without wasting a second, he propelled himself over to a nearby Hammer Frame with wind magic, and made quick work of it in just a few slashes. "Hurry and take them out while they're still in the air," Ventus called to the others.

His shout was unnecessary, as the others had already caught on and started tearing apart every Heartless within their reach. Any that were too far away for some of them to so much as tag with their weapon did not escape, thanks to Xion, Sora, and Donald blasting them with both wind magic to keep them in the air and then some other spell to finish them off afterwards. By the time they had landed on the scaffold again, the Heartless had all been dealt with, and the construction site saved.

"Nice fast thinking there, Roxas," praised Sora.

"Yeah, guess for once it was a good thing to have your head up in the air," Xion teased.

"Ha, ha, ha," Roxas sarcastically laughed in reply to Xion's joke, not noticing how Mickey had hopped down to join them on the scaffold and was now rushing over to him.

Now that he was closer to them, the group was able to better take in the Keyblade king's appearance, and saw that it was far different than anything any of them ever saw him wearing. Instead of the black coat they last saw him in, Mickey was wearing little more than his white gloves and big shoes, and a pair of shorts with two buttons on the front. A simple look, and yet, it seemed very suitable for him, even in black and white. They probably would have tried to talk to him about what was going on along with all the other matters and questions they had for him, but Mickey seemed to be in quite the hurry, as he just grabbed Roxas's hand after rushing up to him, eagerly shook it several times, and then waved goodbye before hurrying away.

"Okay…that was…interesting," Roxas commented, not sure what else he could say about that little interaction. The others were not much help in that regard, so they just let the matter drop for the time being.

Thankfully, Goofy found something else they could discuss, and quickly pointed it out to them. "Hey, look! It's another weird movie screen like the one we saw before."

Looking to the far corner of the scaffolding, they saw that Goofy had indeed spotted such a screen, and they all quickly approached it. Given what had happened the last time they found one of these, it was probably a safe guess that they were going to see something that had happened to them recently. Some of them wondered if it would be something about their most recent battle that they had missed, much like how they saw the Heartless entering the windows before they came into this world on the last screen, but the rest were not entirely sure if it was really worth it to watch another movie about this recent chapter in their journey. Regardless, the last screen was pretty helpful, so they figured they should take a look at this one too.

When they reached that decision, Roxas reached over to pull on the rope, and the curtains parted to unveil a scene that, while still in black and white, was not of something that happened in whatever strange place the Timeless River was proving to be.

---

"You absolute idiot! You've managed to fail at everything," Maleficent snapped as she looked out over the plains and chasms of Hollow Bastion, and it only became clear that she was addressing the person behind the camera when she turned around to speak directly at them. Of course, what also became clear was just how furious she really was, because it showed on her face in a terrifying glare. "And what's more, you foolishly thought you could take my place while I was away."

The person behind the camera seemed to look away in shame before Maleficent's belittling reached a low point that made them turn back again, likely out of surprise. "Well, as of now, you're finished! Mark my words, there'll be no place for you when our time comes!" Maleficent snapped, and with that she spun around with a faint flourish of her cloak, and began to angrily march away. Though, not before adding one last insult to injury. "Useless imbecile."

"But-but…but I," the camera man tried to plea, but Maleficent did not care to spare him even one more glance as she left the room.

---

"Okay, that was different from before," Sora noted aloud, still reeling from the surprise of seeing that last scene.

The Keyblade Legion had returned from the construction site to the area that they had learned was called Cornerstone Hill so that they could discuss both the recent battle and the scene that they had just watched. Some of the group thought that they should focus on getting rid of the Heartless as fast as possible, but given how little they knew about this world they were in, those members were ultimately outvoted in favor of an attempt to try and piece together some of their most recent clues.

"Just to be clear, that was Maleficent who we saw in that video…thing, right," Xion asked, not entirely sure how she should be describing the scenes that they had been watching in those magic movie screens.

"Yep. I'd know that horned headdress and creepy voice anywhere," Ventus confirmed. "And she seemed pretty upset with someone, too."

"She must've gotten over her anger pretty quick, because when we saw her at the castle, she did not look angry at all. A bit annoyed from seeing us again and being reminded of how you guys beat her a year ago, yeah, but definitely not angry. Or at least, not as angry as she looked in that scene," Roxas reasoned for everyone.

"But who was it that she was angry with? Do you think it might've been the bad guy we're trying to find here," Goofy asked.

"Aww…I'm getting confused by all of this," moaned Donald.

Judging by how everyone was rubbing their heads to soothe a possible headache, Donald was not alone in that frustration. Out of all of them though, Roxas did seem to be thinking very deeply on something else. "You know…that last screen only appeared after we defeated the Heartless at the construction site, and that first screen showed us where to look for the Heartless," he reminded everyone, grabbing their attention in wonder of where he was going with this. "So, maybe if we get rid of all the Heartless in the areas those other windows lead to, we'll find some more of those same screens."

"And they'll probably show us more about what happened, including how this place ties into Maleficent's plans and where the door we need to find is," Sora continued on for the former Nobody.

"Right, and if that's the case, it'll also lead us right to our bad guy. Meaning, all we really need to do is take care of the Heartless," Roxas picked up.

"And the movie screens will fill in the rest of the blanks for us," Sora and Roxas then finished as one, sharing a high-five right after.

"Hey, don't you guys start doing that too! It'll make me feel less special when I do it with Roxas," Xion whined, but her smile gave it away that she was only joking.

Ventus, Donald, and Goofy were the only ones who laughed at Xion's joke, but otherwise, they all agreed that the two boys had a good plan, and proceeded to hop through the next window, this time going into the one with an image of a person tied to the ground. When they came out the other side of the window, they found themselves in another town, except this one was on a much smaller scale. In more ways than one.

"Whoa! The whole town's shrunk," Sora exclaimed upon realizing the roofs of the biggest houses barely came up to his knees, much to everyone's amazement.

"Or do ya think maybe we got bigger," Goofy suggested.

Xion on the other hand just had to joke, "Either way, I don't think anyone here will be able to call me little."

Ventus spared a look to the lone girl of their group and noted, "You really are very sensitive about your height, aren't you, Xion?"

"It's kinda hard not to be when you're the smallest person in almost every group you've been a part of. Even back when Roxas and I were part of the Organization, I was the smallest person in the group," Xion pointed out. "I may not remember all that much about that time, but I have been getting a few flashes of memory lately about one or two members making fun of me for it."

"Not to mention Seifer and his gang did the same while we were living in that Virtual Twilight Town," Roxas reminded them.

"Oh yeah, there's that too," Xion dryly remarked, shooting a look at her brother to show how little thanks she had for that reminder.

"Hey, look on the bright side: you're not the smallest member of our team. That honor goes to Donald," Sora pointed out, getting in a chance to tease the magician once again.

"Yeah, it does," Donald nodded happily, not getting the joke right away. Of course, like always, he did get it eventually. "Hey!"

The others all got a very good laugh out of the latest episode of Raging Donald Duck, and Xion soon forgot all about her previous issue, right to the point where she even noticed a couple other things about the diminutive town. "Hey, look at these toy cannons."

Hearing about toy cannons made everyone circle around a large castle tower with cannons sticking out of just about every window, and proceed to look it over with amused looks on their faces. Although, upon closer inspection, along with remembering that they were in a shrunken town, Ventus soon realized that they were very real cannons. He figured it would probably be a good idea to back away from the tower before the townsfolk used the cannons on them, but when he turned to address his students, he caught sight of King Mickey behind some of the small houses trying to get their attention.

It did not take him long to alert the others to the king's presence, and they all turned to see Mickey jumping up and down, while waving at them and shaking his head, almost like he was trying to warn them. Too bad for him, none of the Legion could tell what message Mickey was attempting to give them. "Anyone have an idea what he's saying," Sora asked the group.

"Not me," Roxas and Xion both shrugged, with the others giving similar negative replies.

"Mickey, can you just talk to us?" Ventus pleaded, but Mickey only continued his jumping, waving, and head shaking.

Sora was about to try saying something when he heard the sound of rotors coming from behind him. He turned around to get a look, and upon seeing what had been making the noise, he shouted, "Guys, looks like this town's about to be hit by an airstrike. A Heartless airstrike!"

Deciphering the meaning of Sora's words did not take any effort, especially after the others had turned around to see what he had: several Heartless that took the form of a little monster with a scarf and pilot's cap seated in an airplane with the Heartless emblem emblazoned on either side of said plane. The team only waited long enough for Jiminy to tell them that these were called Aeroplanes before getting to work, because like Sora said, they were starting to attack the small-sized town, and had already demolished a couple of buildings while they had been talking.

Taking out the first few Aeroplanes was no trouble at all, even if it did take a few more attacks than normal, but no battle with the Heartless is ever so easily finished, and a second wave had soon descended upon the small town, this time with some Hammer Frames as backup. Thankfully, Donald and Xion were able to keep most of the aerial Heartless at a distance, but with the heavy-hitting, hammer-shaped Heartless now in the mix, stopping the destruction of the town had become a lot harder. Roxas, Goofy, Sora, and Ventus all tried their best to destroy as many Hammer Frames as they could, but between the shockwave attacks and the Aeroplanes that slipped past their other two friends, it ended up being quite the struggle just to keep themselves in one piece, let alone the town around them.

After using a Thunder Roll to both avoid and at least damage another set of Heartless followed by a powerful, downward slash that destroyed at least one Hammer Frame, Ventus glared about the battleground while thinking of ways to at least slow the Heartless' rampage down at a rapid pace. He did not slow his thoughts at all until his eyes had settled on the tower full of cannons from earlier, and a crazy idea struck him. An idea that was probably as crazy as the one Roxas had when they were at the construction site, and that possibility made Ven's decision even easier to act on.

"Everyone, get ready to duck!" Ventus told the others before jumping up and over to the tower, and when the others saw what he was doing, they did not wait. They just ducked down as fast as they could.

Instead of crushing the tower after he landed on it like one would have expected, Ventus ended up causing the towers cannons to let out a rapid fire blast at all the Heartless, pushing them as far away from the town as they possibly could, much to the rest of the team's surprise. Not that they really complained that much, considering that gave them more room to move and attack without worrying over the town. In fact, the only comment that was made came from when Xion stood up again and said, "Weird, but effective."

"I think that's going to be a bit of theme for everything today," Roxas sighed as he rushed a couple of Hammer Frames and destroyed them both in one, leaping strike and then another two Heartless with a cross-slash as he landed again.

The remaining Heartless went down just as quickly, and before anyone knew it, the small-sized town was completely cleared of any danger. Well, any danger aside from the Keyblade Legion accidentally stepping on it. As the team let out breathes of relief, Mickey came rushing over to grab Ventus's hand, and shook it just as eagerly as he had earlier with Roxas right before waving goodbye and running off again.

Ventus stared after where his friend and final master had run off before he ultimately said, "Yeah, like Xion said; that whole experience was weird."

"I just wish the king would talk to us a little bit instead of just shaking hands and rushing off," Sora admitted, and no one needed to ask for the reason why.

Thankfully, they were soon distracted by the sight of another magic movie screen, and they quickly gathered around to see what it had to offer this time, once Ventus had pulled the rope to roll the film.

---

"Aw, for cryin' out loud…she didn't have to go and say that," the camera man from the last clip whined sadly. "Okay, I mighta messed up every now and then, but I'm a lot more things than useless. Why, when I was startin' out…" His reminiscing came to an abrupt end when he dropped his head in sadness, and one could hear him sniffling sadly, like he was about to cry when he next spoke. "Oh, I miss those good ol' days. What I wouldn't give to go back in time…" Another sniffle followed. "What I wouldn't give…"

Suddenly a bright light flashed from somewhere behind the camera guy, and after letting out another sniffle, he turned around to find an odd, glowing door that had not been there before. At the top of the doorframe, was a single point, while above the door itself was a shield with the letter "P" on one side, a smoking cigar on the other, and a fist resting beneath both in the bottom point. The sight of this door surprised Camera-Guy, and he quickly moved to get a closer look. A pair of big, bulky hands in strangely familiar gloves then grasped the door handles, and pulled it open, and a bright light consumed the camera's vision before Camera-Guy said one final sentence as the video ended.

"Hey! I think that's my…!"

---

Despite what Sora and Roxas had concluded earlier about watching all the weird movies before processing the clues, the team could not help but stop and talk about the most recent movie. It was pretty clear to everyone that the door that had appeared in the film was the one they were looking for, since despite the similarities to the one that they came through, there were at least one or two notable differences. Even so, they could not help but look around for this other door, now that they knew what it looked like, but to their dismay, they could not find any sign of it, so they just elected to move on to the next window.

This time around, they found themselves in a location where it was already night, and with a large building towering over everyone, and from the look of things, they had arrived just in time to save the day. "Fire!" Xion screamed over the loud sirens the second she saw the tall building up in flames. "Guys, that building is on fire!"

"Yeah, we noticed, and it looks like we're not the only ones who did," Roxas announced before pointing off to the side, where he spotted Mickey rushing onto the scene and scrambling this way and that in a desperate attempt to douse the flames.

"Majesty!" Donald exclaimed.

"Come on! He needs our help!" Sora insisted before rushing over, only to be cut off by several Heartless. Thankfully, there were no new ones this time, but instead, merely a small group of Shadows, but then, Sora caught sight of a few flames on the ground that seemed to be alive and spewing fire out at the building to make it burn faster. "That's not good."

"You can say that again," Ventus agreed as he and the others drew their weapons. "Anyone who can use water spells, focus on those living flames! The rest of you…well, I doubt I need to say what you're job is, do I?"

"No, you don't," Xion, Roxas, and Goofy all chorused as one, and like that, the team set to work.

Keeping the Heartless away from Sora, Donald, and Ventus took little effort on the other three's part at first. Not surprising given that the first few were just a bunch of Shadows, and the magic-blasting trio was easily able to extinguish that first flame monster with some easy water spells. Problems began to rise soon after when another wave of Heartless came into attack, and this time, there was at least one new Heartless among their number. This one took on the appearance of a monster car with two big wheels in the front and two small ones in back, while a set of razor sharp teeth served as its grill at the front. The roof of the monster car was so low that no one would be able to see a driver, assuming there was one, but there was just enough space to pick out a pair of glowing yellow eyes from the darkness between its roof and hood. Jiminy called this one a Hot Rod and they all quickly learned that it had some serious road rage.

The three that were primarily focused on fighting approached the Hot Rods with caution at first, until Roxas decided to just screw it and outright charged. When the Hot Rod attempted to slug him with its front tires, Roxas easily managed to deflect the attacks with his Keyblades and begin tearing into it, even as it tried to take a bite out of him, but right when he thought he had it cornered, the monster car suddenly revved its engine and rocketed towards him, plowing right through him when it did. Thankfully, Roxas was not too badly hurt, but he was a little too disoriented to notice that the Hot Rod had turned around and started preparing to charge him again. Goofy quickly came to the rescue at the last minute by stopping it with his shield, and this time around the Hot Rod was the one ended up too disoriented to notice someone coming in to attack it. Said someone was Xion, who easily blasted it with several rounds of Blizzara.

They figured that was the end of their troubles, when suddenly another pair of Hot Rods materialized and started coming after them in several rounds of mad rush attacks. Despite their best efforts, none of the three could hold these two road-raging Heartless back forever, and before they knew it, the Hot Rods had made their way to Sora, Donald, and Ventus, forcing the three to break off from their firefighting duties in order to jump out of the way. Despite their best efforts, none of them were able to get back to extinguishing the flame monsters, as the Hot Rods made it impossible to worry about anything other than the two of them, so with little other choice, the team put all their focus on the Hot Rods. That too was a mistake, as it gave the fire monsters more time to try and burn down the building that started swaying from side to side, and when she saw this, Xion could not stop herself from acting.

After rolling out of the way of another Hot Rod's charge, Xion fixed her gaze on the flame monsters, aimed her Keyblade, and fired off a blast of magic, only this time, instead of calling out an ice spell like she had expected to, Xion was surprised to see a stream of water erupt from the tip of Two Become One and then thoroughly douse the fire monster until it had fizzled out into nothing more than a puff of smoke. Xion could hardly believe her eyes, so she quickly turned to one of the remaining fire monsters to try again, and sure enough, another stream of water came forth to extinguish the flame. She was not the only one to take notice though.

"Whoa, Xion! You've learned water magic," Sora cheered as he held back a Hot Rod with Kingdom Key.

"Guess watching you and Ven do it gave me a few pointers," Xion shrugged, albeit with a proud grin. She was brought back to the situation at hand when Roxas suddenly appeared between her and the other Hot Rod, and crossed his Keyblades in order to better stop the car monster from running his sister over.

"As happy as I am for you, Sis, how about you focus on helping to put out the fire while we deal with these guys," Roxas suggested with a grunt of exertion.

"On it!" Xion assured, and she turned her attention over to the remaining fire monsters so she could proceed in firing off more blasts of water, with Donald joining in soon after.

With Xion now helping to extinguish the fires, Sora was now freed up to join in on the fight, and did so with style by unleashing Destiny Blaze within seconds. Between the power of Sora's Command Style, Roxas's natural dual wielding abilities, and of course the combined strength of Goofy and Ventus, the Hot Rods stood little chance of surviving, right to the point where Sora's use of his Command Style's finisher seemed like overkill. With the last of the Heartless dealt with, Xion and Donald managed to get the fire put out without any trouble at all, and the team finally felt that they could relax. This was further enforced by the sight of Mickey running over, eagerly shaking Xion's hand in thanks, and then waving goodbye as he rushed off.

"Well, I guess that's that," Xion sighed, having expected that to happen at this point, though part of her did feel as giddy as a school girl at having gotten to shake hands with King Mickey for some reason.

"Not quite. We've still got see what that has to show us," Ventus pointed out as he indicated another movie screen. "Care to do the honors, superstar?"

"With pleasure," Xion smiled happily, and she then pulled the rope to start up the latest scene for them to view.

---

The scene opened to reveal Maleficent standing before the glowing door that appeared at the end of the last scene, and from the look of things, she was quite intrigued with the thing. "Fascinating," Maleficent mused aloud. "This appears to be a portal to the past."

"Yeah, it was the strangest thing," Camera-Guy nodded.

"Stop gawking!" Maleficent snapped at him. "And start thinking of a way we can use it to our advantage."

"Okay."

"Now, perhaps I could give you one more chance to redeem yourself," Maleficent offered, prompting the same big pair of hands to appear in view and clasp together in thanks.

"Oh, thank you, thank you! You can count on me," Camera-Guy assured his master. "So, what do I do?"

"Patience, my dear," Maleficent told him, and she turned back to the glowing door to take another look inside. "What have we here? Well, if it isn't the Cornerstone of Light. Hmm… Now we can take the castle from those fools, but we'll have to proceed with the utmost of care."

Camera-Guy did not seem to be listening too closely, as his attention turned up towards the shield above the door before the scene ended.

---

"So Maleficent is our big mastermind," Ventus noted aloud, though you did not need to hear his tone of voice to know that he was hardly surprised. "No wonder she seemed so sure that she would be able to take the castle when we spoke with her."

"I'm a little more interested in some of the other things that she said in that scene," admitted Xion.

"Yeah," Goofy agreed. "I mean, if that door's connected to the past…"

"No, no, no! It comes here," Donald interrupted.

"We know that, but if what Maleficent said in that scene is true, then that means," Roxas started, only to stop short as his eyes went wide along with nearly everyone else's.

"WE'RE IN THE PAST VERSION OF DISNEY TOWN!" Sora, Donald, Xion, Goofy, and Roxas all cried out at once.

Ventus's reaction, while not quite as loud, still came off as rather unique in comparison. "Time travel? This whole thing is a time travel mission?" He asked in sorrowful disbelief before he slapped his forehead with a tired groan. "Oh no; not again."

"Again?" Sora repeated in question, while Roxas and Xion gave him confused looks. None of them noticed how Donald and Goofy started to look a little panicked and began waving at Ventus to not say anything more.

Ventus must have realized his slip had been noticed, given the way he had flinched at Sora's question, but he managed to regain his composure quickly enough, and said, "Let's just say this isn't the first time I've dealt with time travel stuff, and leave it at that."

"Why? What happened," Roxas asked, clearly ignoring what Ventus had said about leaving it at what he said.

"It's…a long story. One I'd rather not talk about, especially right now," Ventus stated with finality.

Seeing Ventus so determined to end that part of the conversation made the other three Keybearers realize they would not get any answers out of him right now, so they ended up reluctantly changing the topic. At least, in most cases, as Xion could not help but smile and admit, "Still, it's actually kinda cool. The idea of us being in the past and seeing how Disney Town was like before it became what it is today, and before the castle had even been built."

"Yeah… That is true," Sora agreed with a smile. "And you know, if we are in the past, then that would mean…"

"We can change the future," Donald caught on with the same smile as Sora.

"Hey, hold on, fellas! Remember what Merlin said?" Goofy questioned.

"That he has faith in us," Roxas recalled. "I guess this would be that dark thing he said we might be tempted to do."

"Right, so we've got to resist that temptation no matter what," Goofy agreed.

The others were silent for a little bit, making Goofy and Roxas worried that their words had fallen on deaf ears, until Donald and Sora just smiled and the former said, "Aw, I was only joking."

"Yeah, who'd want to change the future, anyway?" Sora questioned with a laugh as he tucked his hands behind his head.

Ventus on the other hand could only laugh nervously before saying, "Uh, right. That'd be really…silly. I mean, unless they were trying to stop something really bad from happening. You know, like maybe some kind of apocalypse, for example, or maybe keeping a bad guy who had also gone back in time from changing the past to their liking? Just throwing that out there. Hehe…"

"That's an interesting example," Xion slowly observed, her eyes suddenly narrowing on Ventus with a hint of suspicion.

"I don't think so. I mean, that's kind of what we're doing right now. Stopping a bad guy who went back in time from changing the past in their favor," Ventus pointed out.

No one had any argument with that, because that did seem like the case, but they still had no clue who the bad guy they were looking for was. Given that the Cornerstone was at full power, it could not possibly be Maleficent herself, so it had to be whoever Camera-Guy was, and they could only think of one way to figure out his identity: destroy the Heartless in the last window, and they immediately set out to do just that. Unlike the last three though, they did not land in another town of any kind. Instead, they ended up in a living room that seemed to be decorated for Christmas.

As he looked around a little more, Ventus eventually came to realize that he knew exactly where they were, and quickly notified the others, "Hey, this is Mickey's house!"

"Huh? But I thought the castle wasn't even under construction yet. At least, that's what that one sign said," Sora remembered, having stopped to better look at some of the signs around Cornerstone Hill while they were between battles.

"No, not the castle. I mean his home from before the castle was built," Ventus clarified. "Despite what you may believe, Mickey wasn't always the king of this world. There was a time when he was just an ordinary citizen with his own little home, and this is it. I know because Mickey still has said house in the present, and told me that he sometimes goes there when he needs to get away from it all and have some time to himself. He even took me there a couple of times when he felt like I needed to stop and relax a little bit."

The others nodded at this, now understanding what Ventus had met with his earlier statement, and proceeded to take in the modest, homely atmosphere of King Mickey's original home. At least they were, until Xion noticed something out of place. "Hey Ven," she called out. "Did King Mickey's house normally have a weird black hole in the middle of the living room whenever you visited?"

"Uh…No, why do you ask," Ventus inquired.

"Well…"

Turning to where Xion had pointed, Ventus and the others all blanched at the sight of the very thing Xion had mentioned, sucking up all the furniture like a vacuum cleaner would dust and dirt from off the floor. The only thing that was not getting sucked in was Mickey himself, as he scrambled back and forth across the room in an effort to save his stuff. He ended up getting chased away though, when several Rapid Thruster Heartless materialized between him and the black hole, and proceeded to attack the poor King-to-be.

"Come on! He needs our help," Sora encouraged the team as he charged forward. Not that they needed the encouragement.

Dealing with the Rapid Thrusters was hardly a problem, even if they came after in the team in swarm after swarm. No, the real problem was the black hole that was sucking in all of Mickey's furniture, along with everything else in the house. The team all agreed that if they did not find some way of stopping it soon, there may even be a chance that the thing would suck up a lot more than just the house's furnishings, but how can anyone stop a black hole? Even for a team with four Keyblade wielders, that seemed like a pretty tall order, and that was without accounting for the Heartless as well.

At one point, Sora's Keyblade strike end up swinging pretty close to the black hole, and Sora could swear he felt it make contact with the thing. If it had been only one time, he could have easily ignored it, but then, he ended up hitting it in passing again, and realized that this might not be an actual black hole, but some type of monster that just happened to look like one. Seeing as he had very little to lose, Sora decided to power up into Valor Form and began wailing on the black hole with both Kingdom Key and Star Seeker at once. To everyone's surprise, every strike Sora landed made the black hole grow smaller and smaller until it finally vanished completely. With the black hole gone, the Legion just needed to destroy the last of the Heartless, and just like that, they were done with this mess. Of course, Mickey had come back in the room when the fight had ended, and just like the last few times, he eagerly shook Sora's hand before waving goodbye and racing upstairs.

"Whew! Well, that's the end of that," Sora gasped in relief.

"And that means, it's time to bring this show to an end," Ventus added with a nod to the magic movie screen.

The others just nodded in reply, and gathered around as Sora pulled the rope to begin what they believed would be the final show that would put the last puzzle piece of this mystery into place, never knowing just what kind of surprise would await them in this viewing.

---

"Listen well," Maleficent instructed Camera-Guy, who simply nodded to show he was listening. "On the other side of this portal, they're about to begin construction on that wretched castle, but until then, their treasured Cornerstone of Light lies unguarded, with all of its power still contained."

"The Cornerstone…of Light," Camera-Guy repeated, the view tilting a little to show that he had quirked his head to one side in confusion.

"Yes. That cursed sphere is the very thing that prevents us from entering the castle," Maleficent confirmed for him.

"Oh."

"You know what must be done?"

"Uh…"

"Go then," Maleficent insisted, either too excited to care if her minion did know or not, or not all that eager to hear whatever half-baked understanding he might have of this plan. "Time to prove your worth! And don't dare to fail me again!"

With that, Maleficent took her leave from the room, and the camera began to come around and show whose perspective it had been following this whole time. "Don't fail her again…let's see…That's it! I just gotta smash that Cornerstone to smithereens!" cheered the big bully that is Pete. He then let out a devious chuckle before turning to the door and stepping through, as he added, "But first, I gotta go get my old boat back."

---

"So it was Pete after all," Sora stated once the team had all returned to Cornerstone Hill.

"Why, he tricked us," Donald growled, unable to believe that they had been fooled by Pete of all people.

"I don't know about that, guys. The guy we met after we first got here and then fought at the Pier may have been Pete, and was definitely a bit of a jerk, but I didn't really get much of a villain vibe off of him. At least, not like the one I usually get from Pete whenever we've run into him before," Roxas disputed, his brow furrowed in deep thought.

"I'm with Roxas on this. Something just doesn't seem right about that," Goofy agreed.

That got the others to think a little bit, until Xion finally admitted, "Yeah, the Pete we met here definitely didn't seem like a bad guy. And he was pretty nice to us after I helped to heal him up."

Donald nodded along in reply, knowing Xion had a point there, but then he caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned to see an unwelcome sight. "Look!"

Turning to where Donald was facing, the crew saw the very villain they were just talking about, clad in his usual armor, and grinning proudly as he laughed before he took off towards the waterway, all the while cheering, "Now that castle's as good as ours!"

"There's the Pete we know!" Ventus determined.

"Bad, bad, bad!" Donald growled in agreement.

"And I think I know why he looks like the cat who got the cream," Sora announced as he pointed behind them. "Look! The Cornerstone's gone!"

Spinning around in a panic, the others saw that Sora was right, for the only thing left where the Cornerstone should be was the four blocks it had been sitting on. "Oh this is bad," Ventus muttered out of panic. "Pete must've snatched it while we were busy dealing with those Heartless."

"But if he took the Cornerstone and is going to destroy it like he said he would in that last video…" Roxas started.

"Then that means…" Donald continued on.

"They're gonna fill the castle with darkness! We've gotta hurry and stop him," Goofy finished at last.

Just when they were about to nod in agreement with Goofy's assessment, the team heard someone tiredly panting, and turned to see Captain Pete running past them. Thinking he was the Pete that they know, Sora raced over and shouted, "Hey, hold it right there!"

"No way, small fry," Captain Pete denied. "I finally found the pipsqueak what stole my steamboat!"

"Yeah, it was you," Donald accused.

"Right, me!" Captain Pete proudly confirmed. When he realized what he said, he hurriedly back-tracked while waving his hands in denial. "No, no! It wasn't me! It's just somebody who looks like me!"

"Aw, which is it?!" Sora groaned miserably as Captain Pete ran off towards the waterway as well, with Donald and Goofy joining him in gripping their heads in misery.

Thankfully, seeing Captain Pete again and hearing his last sentence helped Xion to finally figure it out. "The first Pete we saw was definitely the one we normally deal with, but since we're in the past, that must mean that Captain Pete is his past self!"

"Of course! Why didn't I see it before," Ventus berated himself. "We had the right bad guy, just from the wrong time."

"Assuming Captain Pete could really be considered a bad guy," Roxas pointed out.

"Right now, I'd say not, since he's the one whose boat is getting stolen," Sora reminded them. After thinking for a little though, Sora could not help but question that. "Then again, is it really getting stolen if the thief is his future self? Or does it still count since our Pete obviously doesn't own that boat anymore?"

"Sora, do yourself a favor and stop thinking about it right now. Trust me, it'll only give you a headache that you really don't need right now," Ventus advised. "Now come on! We've got to go after both Petes so we can get the Cornerstone back!"

Everyone worked fast as soon as Ventus said that, and raced over to the waterway as fast as they could, hoping to stop Pete from destroying the Cornerstone and in the process get back Captain Pete's boat before something happened to it. Unfortunately for them, they only just arrived in time to hear Captain Pete shouting for someone to wait, and from the sound of things, a fight between the past and present versions of Pete had already started to break out.

"Shuddup!" Pete could be heard snapping at his past self. "Your future's on the line, pallie, so back off and give me the boat!"

By the time that the Legion had finally arrived, they could only watch as Pete socked his past self so hard that he sent the boat captain flying to parts unknown. "Oof! That's gotta hurt," Roxas commented.

"Yeah, you really should be careful. There's no telling what beating up your past self could do to you. It might actually make you even stupider than you already are," Ventus quipped to Pete as they came to a stop.

Pete jumped in surprise when he heard that, and quickly hopped up onto the cage that had been tied to the back of the classic steamboat with the Cornerstone inside, before letting out his usual laugh. "You're too late, nimrods," Pete proudly boasted. "I've got everything I need to make sure that Maleficent's plans for your precious castle succeed. You might as well say bye-bye to the Cornerstone, because there's nothing you can do to stop me now!"

"You know, I seem to recall you saying something similar about the plans you had just about every other time we've run into you lately, and look how those turned out," Xion joked as she and the others readied their weapons.

Pete ignored the jab at his evil plans, and instead just whistled at the boat that was pulling the Cornerstone along, and with a puff of its smokestacks, the steamboat began paddling its way down the river. "Later losers!" Pete hollered at them as he pulled out onto the open water.

Sora did not seem the least bit deterred by this setback, but instead simply smirked and took aim with his Keyblade. "Like it's gonna be that easy for you to get away," he announced, building up the energy for one of his own special attacks. "Typhoon…"

"NO!" shouted Ventus, who had quickly shoved Sora's Keyblade aside, sending Sora spinning like a top. "Even with just normal magic it's too risky. You could damage the Cornerstone."

"But how are we gonna stop Pete if we can't stop that boat," Goofy asked, only to receive no answer to his question due to the fact that Pete had started throwing a lot of large objects at them that looked like stuff he had pulled from a garbage pile, and they had to move quickly in order to dodge them.

"Where did he get this stuff from," Roxas questioned after rolling away from a flying, cardboard box. "There's no way he could've fit any of it into his pockets."

"Said the guy who was able to store entire tents in the pockets of his Organization coat back in the day," Xion reminded him as she spun away from the massive frying pan that had just been thrown at her.

"Technically, we all have magic pockets thanks to the enchantments the three good fairies gave our outfits, so you can still do that," Ventus revealed to the twins, just before he had to leap to one side to avoid being hit by another large box.

In between all of this, no one seemed to realize that Sora was still spinning after how Ventus had stopped him from launching his attack earlier. "I'm gonna be sick!" Sora cried out to the others, right when Pete had thrown something else at them, this being a large bowling ball. Normally, if something like this hit, it would have hurt a lot, but when it made contact with the spinning Sora, the bowling ball ended up getting batted away by the boy's Keyblade, and right back at Pete to smash into his face. As an added bonus, Sora's spinning finally came to an end. "Did I…get…the thing…or…something," Sora dizzily asked as he stumbled around while attempting to recover from his dizzy spell.

"You got him, Sora, and you gave me an idea," Roxas confirmed, readying both of his Keyblades for the next time Pete threw something at them. He did not wait long, since Pete managed to shake off that last hit pretty quickly, and thrown something else as soon as he had recovered. This time, Roxas did not bother dodging, but instead, blocked the item with his Keyblades, and then spiked it up into the air. "Xion! Hit it!"

"Got it!" Xion shouted back, and she then leapt upwards to send the box flying back to Pete with her Keyblade. She hit the mark without problem, right when Pete had thrown another frying pan. Having now caught onto her brother's idea, Xion spun Two Become One around to intercept the frying pan before it could hit her, and spiked it into the air while shouting, "Ventus, heads up!"

"Way ahead of you!" Ventus affirmed, having already taken a running start for his jump, and in no time at all, he had sent the frying pan flying right into Pete's face.

That last hit did the trick, as it not only knocked Pete out, but sent the steamboat spinning around until it had come to a stop right back where it had started along the shore. As the team rushed over to smash open the cage holding the Cornerstone, and knock Pete off the boat, Xion spared Sora a quick look and said, "Nice thinking there, Sora."

"Yeah…Thanks," Sora sheepishly chuckled, content to let the others think that he had meant to do that first hit.

Now that the steamboat and its cargo were closer to them, the Legion was able to attack the cage holding the Cornerstone without worrying about possibly hitting the Cornerstone itself, and they did so quite eagerly. Of course, the Keybearers still did not use any fancy powers like the Command Styles or Shotlocks, since those powers did not really tend to be that finely focused, at least not to the point where they could hit something like the cage bars without something slipping past onto the Cornerstone, but that did not matter too much. They still did an impressive amount of damage to the cage, and it seemed likely that they could bust it open before Pete had recovered again. Too bad for them, the boat had been drifting up-stream since it came back to the shore, and by the time it had gotten to the other end of the shore, Pete had recovered and managed to get it back underway again without any waiting at all.

Just like before, Pete had started throwing stuff at them, and the Keyblade wielders worked to send all of the trash he threw back to him, but this time around, Pete managed to dodge a lot of the stuff they threw back, and somehow managed to throw a lot more objects than they could keep up with than last time. Meaning, their strategy was going to be a lot more difficult to pull off a second time around, assuming it would have worked more than once in the first place, so they needed to come up with a new plan, otherwise Pete was going to get away with the Cornerstone. Unfortunately, no one seemed to have any ideas.

"Darn it! We're never going to get the Cornerstone back at this rate," Ventus growled, pausing for a brief spell to wonder why he had said darn instead of damn, but he set it aside without a second thought.

"If only we could get close without knocking Pete out and forcing the boat back to shore," Sora groused aloud.

Right when Sora said that, Xion stopped short, almost getting hit by another frying pan after doing so had she not ducked at the last second, and then looked to both her master and senior apprentice with a befuddled expression. "Um, I know I'm probably not one to talk, since I only just thought of this now, but did you guys actually forget that you have a way to just fly out there and attack both Pete and the cage without having to do all this extra legwork with us?"

Now Sora and Ventus had to stop short, and they soon shared a look with each other asking if they had really been that dumb before they both said, "Oh yeah. Keyblade Gliders."

The two then seemed to robotically transform their respective Keyblades into the vehicles in question, and flew out to intercept Pete, while attacking the cage with the struts on their respective Keyblade Gliders. As they watched this happen from the shore, Roxas had to ask, "Did they seriously forget they could do that?"

"To be fair, this place does seem like it's been having a certain effect on us all," Goofy pointed out.

With Sora and Ventus running an aerial attack on Pete and the steamboat, it was not long before victory was claimed by the Keyblade Legion. One final hit from Sora's Keyblade Glider ended up breaking the cage open, and a powerful blast of wind magic from his hands allowed Ventus to send Pete flying into the water, much to the heroes' relief and Pete's annoyance. Afterwards, the steamboat was set adrift until Sora flew onto the deck and took the wheel so he could guide it back to shore.

"You'll all pay for this," Pete angrily promised after popping up out of the water. He would have added more but the barge holding the Cornerstone ended up bonking him in the head and sending him back under.

The Keyblade Legion had paid Pete's revenge declaration little mind, as they watched Sora easily bring the steamboat into port on the beach. The minute that it was close enough, Donald, Xion, Goofy, and Roxas worked quickly to tie it down so it could not float away, while Ventus checked over the Cornerstone for any damage that the fight may have inflicted. Thankfully, it looked like the powerful light artifact escaped from all of that unscathed, much to everyone's relief, but they could not celebrate just yet. The job was only half done, after all, and they soon found a way to finish it completely.

"Hey, Pete's making a run for it," Roxas shouted after spotting the villain climbing out of the water.

"He must be heading for the door we need to seal. Come on! After him!" Ventus ordered everyone.

"Wait! What about the Cornerstone?" Donald asked, not too eager to leave it on the barge so anyone could come and take it again.

"We'll have to come back for it later," Sora insisted. "If we don't catch up with Pete, we may not ever find that doorway."

Ventus agreed with his apprentice, but at the same time, he knew that Donald had a point about not leaving the Cornerstone behind. If they lost Pete at any point during this chase, then there was a good chance he could circle back around and try to take it again. Thankfully, he knew of a solution for that. "This time, its okay for us to split up," Ventus announced to everyone. "Donald and Goofy, you two stay here with the Cornerstone. The rest of us will take care of Pete and that door."

"Got it," everyone simultaneously agreed, and the four Keyblade wielders proceeded to chase after Pete, while Donald and Goofy moved into guard positions for the very thing that would keep their home and its future safe from Maleficent's evil.

---

The four Keyblade wielders were extremely thankful to see Pete had not gotten any farther than the wharf in his escape attempt, and even better was the sight of Captain Pete preventing his future self from getting any further. Sure, they all felt a little weirded out at the sight of Pete putting a literal spin on wrestling with your past, but they were not going to complain too much. They were just glad to see that Captain Pete was okay in spite of the fact that Pete had sent him flying just a short time earlier. It looked like that might happen a second time though, because right when they had showed up, Pete had just socked Captain Pete down once again with a hard, wind-up punch.

Pete just had to laugh at his past self as the steamboat captain moaned and cried over that most recent injury, and openly mocked him, saying, "Ha! You're still wet behind the ears."

"Oh yeah? Then how about you pick on someone closer to your experience level," challenged Xion as she glared harshly at the villain and summoned her Keyblade.

"Now Xion, don't be rude. You know that we're all much more capable than him," Ventus jokingly admonished.

"I know, but I couldn't tell him to pick on someone his own size. He was already doing that, and none of us are the same size as him," she shrugged back with a smile.

"Oh, you think you're cute, huh?" Pete growled.

"Punk, I'm adorable," Xion smirked proudly.

"It's true. She is," Sora and Roxas both agreed with their own smiles, while Ventus just silently nodded.

Pete growled at the Keybearers for continuing to make a mockery of him, before he finally said, "If I can't complete our plans, then I'll just get rid of you brats for good!"

"No, you won't," Sora confidently argued.

"Yes, I will," Pete snapped back.

"No, you won't."

"Yes, I will!"

"No…You won't."

"Yes…I WILL!"

Right at that point, Sora changed things around on them, and declared, "Yes, you will."

"No, I won't," Pete surprisingly answered back.

"Yes, you will."

"No, I won't!"

"Yes, you will."

Pete then stomped up to Sora, practically got right in the kid's face, and stated, "Listen, you little brat. When I say I won't that means I WON'T!"

"Okay, okay. Whatever you say, big guy. You won't," Sora shrugged in defeat, but only Pete failed to realize he had a knowing smirk on his face the whole time.

"That's better," Pete nodded as he crossed his arms in confidence, much to everyone's confusion.

Only Xion asked the question most of them were wondering. "Wait, didn't you…?"

"Give him a minute," Sora advised.

The team did as Sora asked, and literally a minute later, Pete realized the trick he had fallen into. Needless to say, he was not happy. The punch he had started winding up for Sora just served as excess proof. "HEY! You little wise-guy!"

"Oh, no you don't!" Captain Pete hollered when he suddenly barreled past the four, knocking Ventus and Xion off their feet as he did, while his hat seemed to whistle a little during his charge on Pete.

As they watched Captain Pete charge and subsequently crash right into Pete, saving Sora in the process, the Keyblade Legion could only stare at the sight unfolding before them. Not that anyone could blame them; it was not every day that you saw someone fighting themselves or at least the past/future version of them. Of course, Pete had an extra edge over his former self, namely in the form of magic and several exploding bowling balls, and while Captain Pete seemed able to take a hit, he did still get pretty badly hurt in the process. Lucky for him the Keyblade Legion was not planning on letting him fight alone.

The next time Pete rolled out one of his exploding bowling balls, Roxas jumped in to bat it back with one of his Keyblades, causing it to blow up in Pete's face and leave him disoriented enough for Xion to blast him with some of her own spells. Thanks to Xion's covering fire, Sora and Ventus had no problem rushing in to land some hits up close, and Pete could only stumble over his own feet right up until Captain Pete had socked him in the face again. This pattern continued on, with each Keyblade wielder switching roles with another every now and then, though at times, one of them did have to break from the action so that they could better direct Captain Pete onto his target. The big guy may have had a lot of power, but with how Pete was constantly using ground-pound attacks and rolling out explosives, it would often be hard for the captain to make his charges go in the direction that they needed to go in.

Eventually, it seemed like they had Pete cornered, until he suddenly jumped up and shouted, "How about a change?!"

Before they could ask what he meant by that, a large curtain with Pete's smug smirk dropped down around the area, and when it lifted again, they found that the previously burning building that they had recently put out had appeared behind them. "Uh, what just happened," Roxas asked. "You guys all saw that too, right?"

"Worry about it later! Fight now," Ventus ordered just before he shot off a blast of Waterga in the younger blonde's direction.

Roxas had immediately ducked to avoid getting splashed by his master's spell, and was about to demand why Ventus had done that after getting up again, only to turn around and see the fire monsters from before were popping out of the building at Pete's command. Xion had quickly launched some blasts of Water at another two fire monsters, and since Ventus was still doing the same, Sora and Roxas did not feel like they needed to ask what they should do right now. With the silent agreement made, the two boys joined Captain Pete in attacking his future self, and proceeded to hit Pete as hard and fast as they could in order to keep him from summoning too many more fire monsters. Sora transforming into Valor Form helped ensure that their attacks would not slow down at any point, and Roxas probably would have activated his Dual Style to help make the fight go even more quickly, had Pete not pulled the scenery-changing same stunt he had before right when he was about to focus his energy into Oathkeeper and Oblivion.

This time when the curtain dropped and lifted, the team found themselves inside Mickey's house again, only without all the furniture and with the black hole creature simply sitting in the middle of the room. At least it had been, until Pete pointed at it as a silent signal to expand and start trying to pull them all in. Luckily Sora was still in his Valor Form, so his enhanced speed allowed him to push through its pull and attack Pete without much trouble. Xion was soon powering up her own Valor Form as well, and the two went charging after Pete and attacking with everything they had. Clearly Pete had not thought this scene change through, and it showed when Roxas, Ventus, and Captain Pete were all set free of the black hole creature. The three then proceeded to launch their own attacks on him, forcing Pete to change things up a little sooner than he thought he would have too, right over to an area that had the cannon towers of the small-sized town.

Thinking that they could use the towers like before, Ventus quickly moved towards the closest one, only to end up blocking several blasts from the towers with his Keyblade. Since their master's plan had not worked, Sora, Roxas, and Xion took it upon themselves to take advantage of the extra space and spread out as they proceeded to attack Pete from multiple angles, in every way that they could manage. Sora's options grew a little bit after he powered down his Drive Form, granting him the chance to blast Pete with all of his magic powers, while leaving the twins to handle the main assault. Captain Pete on the other hand, proved to be completely useless though, as he simply just kept running into the attacks and getting hurt in the process. Either that or he would just end up nearly knocking over one of his allies, but the kids managed to keep an eye on their enemy's past self well enough to avoid that problem for the most part.

Ventus could only smile at his apprentices' quick thinking, and thought for sure this would be the end of it, until Pete decided to change things up one more time, this time dropping them onto the scaffolding that they had first met King Mickey's past self on. Remembering how Roxas had turned things to their advantage before, Ventus immediately launched himself upwards and struck the cord in the middle, sending everyone flying into the air. This left both Captain Pete and Pete vulnerable, while the four Keyblade wielders were able to take charge and attack with little problem at all. Too bad for them, it did not last long, as Pete managed to form a magic barrier to protect himself when he finally found a break in the Keybearers' attacks. When they all landed on the platform again, Pete did everything he could to prevent the Keybearers from sending them all flying again, and while they did not necessarily need to get him in the air, the Legion would not deny that doing so would make the fight a little easier, because Pete's attacks seemed to become much more aggressive and rapid than ever before. Xion suddenly dropping out of her Valor Form did not really help too much, but since she did regain access to her magic, she considered it to be of little consequence. At least whenever she managed to find a chance to cast a spell or two.

Right when it seemed like Pete was moments away from forcing some of his friends over the side and down to the ground several miles below, Roxas noticed his whole world suddenly started to slow down. Adding on to the strangeness, he suddenly started waving his Keyblades over Pete like he was preparing to fire a spell from both blades, and that was when he remembered the time something like this happened to Sora. Realizing what this likely meant, Roxas could only smirk as he let the power build up, and then launched himself up in the air as his body glowed with a bright, white light. An instant later, several energy beams shot out from his Keyblades as he spun them around, and then rocketed off at Pete without fail. Even when Pete did manage to avoid a blast or two, the beams ended up turning around and hitting him anyway, indicating that Roxas was shooting off homing blasts of some kind. When the last of the beams hit or faded away, Roxas surged forward in a cloak of light and slashed through Pete with a single cross-slash, knocking him down for the count.

"So, this is my first Shotlock: Thirteenth Hour," Roxas commented as the area reverted back to the wharf once again. Having counted each of the blasts that he had fired from his blades with each spin and realizing that he had fired about thirteen light orbs/beams, Roxas felt that the name was very appropriate.

Any ideas of celebrating Roxas's newly discovered Shotlock were put on hold at the sound of Pete's groans and moans of pain, and they all watched as Pete rushed away to summon up the very magic door that the Keyblade Legion had been looking for. The minute that the door had landed on the ground, Pete threw it open and rushed through as fast as he could, no longer wanting to stick around and risk getting more beaten up than he already had. "Yeah, annnnd stay out," Captain Pete shouted after his future self.

"You guys know what to do," Ventus called to his apprentices while aiming his Keyblade at the door.

"Of course," Sora confirmed on his and the twins' behalf, each of them mimicking Ven's actions in their own ways as a glowing keyhole appeared on the now closed door.

When the keyhole had fully formed, a beam of light shot out of all five Keyblades, and a locking sound then echoed out from the door once the beams had struck. The instant the seal had come into place, Pete's magic door to the past started to glow brightly and then vanished altogether, letting the Keyblade Legion know that they would not have to worry about it ever again. Ventus knew that Maleficent would likely continue her efforts to drown all the worlds in darkness in spite of this setback, but for now, he would take comfort in knowing that she would no longer be able to do so with this method. Maleficent and Pete would be a problem for another day though, because the Keyblade Legion still had a couple things left to do before this mission was over.

The first of those things seemed to be providing an explanation to a certain steamboat captain, since Captain Pete marched up and started demanding answers right after the door had vanished. "Would somebody tell me what's been goin' on here? Who was that creep, anyways?"

Sora could hardly believe that the captain had not already realized it on his own, and thus could not help but start to talk without really thinking. "Hello," he groaned. "That creep was…"

Thankfully, Sora's answer ended up being muffled by Xion slapping a hand over her brother's mouth, while she attempted to hush him up. "Sora, quiet!" Xion admonished as quietly as she could. "That's supposed to be a secret, remember?"

"Secret? What kinda secret," Captain Pete asked, having overheard that part. In the end though, he figured out that he probably was not going to get the answers he was looking for, and just waved it off. "Oh, never mind," he told the Keyblade Legion. "Hey listen, sorry I put you guys through all that trouble."

"No worries, Captain. Just try not to make too much of a habit out of it, alright," Ventus assured him with a knowing smile.

Sora, Roxas, and Xion had to put in a very great effort to keep their laughter down, or at least quiet, but thankfully, Captain Pete did not seem to notice. Either that or he was feeling really grateful for their help in stopping his future self. The latter seemed all the more likely when he suddenly decided, "You know what? To show you all my appreciation, I'll let you pilot my steamboat. Best little craft on the river."

Being an islander, Sora instantly grinned at the chance to take the steamboat for a spin, and Roxas and Ventus seemed pretty eager for the chance too, with the latter knowing that they would need to get the Cornerstone back where it belonged somehow, but Xion could not help but ask, "Are you sure that would be okay?"

"Of course it is! My deck hand, Mickey's late anyway," Captain Pete assured them.

The four blanched a little at hearing that apparently the king was Pete's deck hand at this point in time, but ultimately did not question it. The sooner they got the Cornerstone back to where it should be, the sooner they could get back to their time, and after all the wackiness that they had endured here, they were all ready to get back home.

---

Piloting the steamboat proved to be a lot of fun for the Keyblade Legion, as evidenced by how they were all smiles the entire time. Whether it be manning the wheel or just blowing the whistle, they each had all kinds of fun at the wheel of the small river craft. At one point, Roxas ended up starting to whistle a rather interesting tune that Ventus could swear that he heard Mickey whistling once or twice while he was working on something or just lounging around, and when they others asked why he had been doing so, Roxas merely shrugged and said that the urge just suddenly came to him. No one complained about it; the tune was very enjoyable and catchy.

One short trip down the river and a little bit of magic later, the group had arrived at a point where they could easily move the Cornerstone of Light back onto its original perch. Just before they left the steamboat, Captain Pete gave a small, coin-like object to Roxas. According to him, Pete had dropped it at some point during their fight, and he figured that it would be better for one of them to have it. Looking over the coin, Roxas noted that its most defining feature was the image of a duck's face with a wide-brim hat atop his head. A quick, magical analysis of the coin allowed Ventus to confirm that it was in fact another summon charm, and Roxas happily pocketed it after thanking the steamboat captain.

Shortly after they had said goodbye to Captain Pete, the crew set to work with the last of their heavy lifting, and were soon letting out a collective sigh of relief upon setting the Cornerstone of Light back where it should be. "There we go. Good as new," Ventus nodded.

"Yep, and I'll betcha the castle's safe now, too," Goofy reasoned.

"It better be after all we've gone through here," grumbled Roxas.

"Only one way to find out," Sora reminded him. "Let's head back."

Everyone nodded in agreement at first, until Donald suddenly had an idea that he just had to bring up. "Wait! As long as we're here…"

"DONALD!" Literally everyone else on the team snapped at the magician with angry looks.

Donald glanced between each of his friends for a few seconds before shaking his head and insisting, "No, no, no, no, no! I was only joking." Needless to say, no one believed him, and that was what led Sora and Goofy to grab Donald by both arms and start dragging him towards the door home. "Hey! What's the big idea?!" Donald protested as he struggled against their holds. "Let me go! Lemme go!"

Donald's protests went ignored, and thankfully, Sora and Goofy did not have to worry about releasing him so they could get the door open. Xion and Roxas had already rushed ahead to get it for them, and the twins then watched with entertained smiles as Sora and Goofy threw their friend through the door. With the mischievous duck now sent back to their own time, the others proceeded to march through the door as well, but not without Ventus making a quick remark about the whole experience. "Thank goodness that's over," the blonde master had said. "I swear, if I never have to deal with time travel anything again, it'll be too soon."

"Sheesh! Just how bad was that last time travel experience of yours," asked Xion, now more curious than ever about it.

"I do not want to talk about," Ventus replied in repeat of what he had said last time they asked him about this topic. "And even if I did, like I said before, it's a long story. Like nineteen chapters long."

"That's…an oddly specific number of chapters," Xion could not help noting as they stepped through the door.

Upon hearing her remark, Ventus had to pause and think a little until he ultimately admitted, "Yeah…I have no idea where that came from, either."

Even if they wanted to say something in response, the group decided to focus more on getting through the strange passageway that led from Disney Castle to Timeless River, and before they knew it, they were greeted to the bright, clean, shining walls of the Hall of the Cornerstone, in full color and one hundred percent thorn-free. Sweetening the deal was the sight of all their friends smiling happily upon their return, be it out of relief at seeing that the castle was now out of danger, excitement at the possibility of a celebration coming, or just seeing that the Keyblade Legion had returned safely.

"Welcome back, everyone," Queen Minnie greeted. "Because of your bravery, the castle is safe and protected again. I can also sense the remaining Heartless' presence being wiped from this world even as we speak. Thank you all so much for all you've done."

"You don't need to thank us, Minnie. We were all more than happy to help," Ventus assured the queen, with the rest of the team nodding in agreement of the sentiment.

Merlin did feel that he needed to ask the all-important question. "Now my friends, I hope none of you did anything reckless while you were there, did you?"

"Of course not," Donald proudly insisted, making Sora and Goofy chuckle knowingly, while Xion and Roxas both gave him side-eyes. Whether he had been joking or not, none of the group were willing to believe Donald was not the least bit tempted to tamper with history.

Ventus did have one other thing to add on the matter. "Just do me a favor, Merlin, and next time you conjure up some way to send us through time, in any direction, give us a little more warning. So I can look for any possible alternative that might get me out of it."

This time, it was Sora, Roxas, and Xion who were not laughing, mainly because they were still in the dark about Ventus's other time travel experience. Apparently the others all found his protests far more humorous than he likely intended them to be, but the kids would not get the chance to question anyone on it, as Donald noticed someone else had just arrived in the hall along with a recently returned Della. "Daisy!" Donald happily cheered, rushing over to greet the duchess. "Daisy, I'm back!"

"Okay, now who?" Roxas asked, getting tired of seeing so many new faces all at once today.

"Duchess Daisy Duck. Minnie's best friend, and Donald's very special sweetheart," Ventus introduced to the kids.

"Really," Sora noted with a sly tone.

"Who'd have thought Donald could have a girlfriend?" Xion joked, thinking that it had to take someone very special to be able to put up with Donald and his temper and attitude. Then she noticed how Della was smirking at them, indicating that she probably knew what Xion had been thinking and that she was now silently telling them to wait for something to happen. She did not have to wait very long.

Right when Donald was about to reach out and hug her, Daisy suddenly smacked him and angrily scolded, "Donald, you forgot about our date again! You'd better have a good excuse this time!"

"But Daisy, I…" Donald tried to explain, only to come up short for more reasons than one, including his girlfriend interrupting him.

"I know it's an important mission, but you could at least check in every once in a while," Daisy continued scolding.

Donald quickly looked over at Della, wondering why his sister had not filled Daisy in on what had happened to them already, but his sister just gave him that knowing smirk that all siblings give each other when they knew they had pulled off a good joke on the other one. Realizing this, Donald could only spare his sister a brief scowl before he looked to his teammates for help. Too bad for him that most of them were doing their best to avoid his gaze or just gave him waves that told him they would rather he leave them out of this.

"Sora…Ven…Xion…Roxas!" Donald moaned miserably. He then caught sight of the magic door to Timeless River from the corner of his eye, and got a sneaky idea that made him chuckle a little deviously.

"Donald," Merlin warned, having caught the magician's look and chuckle.

"Just be a minute," Donald attempted to assure everyone, and for a minute, the kids thought they would have to pounce on him to stop him from following through, but Daisy beat them all to the punch.

"Going somewhere," Daisy questioned upon grabbing Donald by his tail feathers, literally.

"Of course not," Donald insisted, but he still shook Daisy off him and made a break for it, with Daisy chasing after him to make sure he behaved himself, much to everyone's amusement.

Their attention was diverted before the literal love-ducks got too far into their squabble by the sudden appearance of the four wielders' Keyblades, and right after, the Cornerstone suddenly started glowing brighter than normal. Realizing what this likely meant, Ventus, Sora, Xion, and Roxas all shared a knowing look and a nod, and then held out their Keyblade before themselves. The four watched as the tips of their Keyblades began to glow brightly, as a familiar energy surged out from around them. Much like the many times before, once the surge passed, the four found themselves in the strange sky, and they quickly spotted the Cornerstone a short distance away from them before it shot out a beam that dispersed into a Keyhole high above it. Without even thinking, Sora, Ventus, Xion, and Roxas all leapt back a short distance, spun their Keyblades around, and then aimed them at the Keyhole that had appeared, allowing a beam of light to be fired off from their tips the minute they had lined them up with the Keyhole. When the beam connected with the Keyhole, a faint ringing sound reached their ears, over the sound of something being unlocked, just as their surroundings returned to normal.

After dismissing his Keyblade, Ventus sighed and determined, "And the adventure continues."

"Like that was ever in question," Sora pointed out.

The others all nodded in agreement, and Xion was just about to go and calm Daisy down so that she could say goodbye to Donald, when Max suddenly came back in as well, along with another boy about the same age as him. Upon seeing said boy, Goofy and Donald gained worried looks and started to look a little more hesitant about something, much to the four Keybearers' confusion. Yes, even Ventus was not aware of why the two were so concerned, and they were quickly becoming concerned as the two started to quietly mutter amongst themselves before Goofy finally straightened up and approached both Max and the other boy.

"Um…Is everything okay," Roxas asked.

"Yeah…It's just…Um," Donald muttered, not sure what to say to his friends right now.

"Spit it out, Donald. What is it about that kid with Max that's got you and Goofy so freaked out?" Ventus asked.

Hearing his question drew a sad sigh from not only Donald, but Minnie, Daisy, Della, Chip, and Dale too, and it was only when Donald finally informed them of who the other kid was that the Keybearers finally understood. "Fellas, that's Max's best friend, PJ, who Goofy took in a short time after his father had been banished by Queen Minnie and King Mickey."

Having only ever heard of one person in Disney Town to be banished by the king and queen, the four Keybearers' eyes all went wide with realization even as Roxas barely stuttered, "Are…Are you saying…That kid's…?"

"Yep. That's Pete's son," Daisy confirmed. "The poor boy and his family have had it really hard ever since his father had been banished for his crimes. Some people even thought that he'd end up just like his dad for a while, until PJ decided he would join the royal guard along with Max."

Now Sora, Roxas, Xion, and Ventus all understood what Donald and Goofy seemed so worried about, and as they looked back over to Goofy and the boys, they all just knew that the conversation he was having with them was not likely to be a good one. Regardless of this, PJ deserved to know about what his father was doing, and it was better to hear it from friends than someone else. Besides, if the kid really intended to join the guard along with Max, Ventus had a feeling that PJ could handle it, just like the Keyblade Legion would be able to handle whatever adventures would await them at their next destination.

---

AN: Whoo-wee! Like I said, that was a long one, and filled with all kinds of cameos and plot points galore! To those of you who had been asking about characters like Della, PJ, Max, and the like...here's your answer to that now. Hope it didn't disappoint. Fair warning though, this may be the only time that we see said characters, so after the Keyblade Legion leaves Disney Castle/Town, they won't be showing up again. Take in your fill of these guys now.

Moving on, there's a lot to talk about here. First and foremost, Xion using the Summon Charm as opposed to Sora. Originally, I wasn't going to have Xion's first summon charm come to her like this, but as I thought more and more on who could summon what characters, I started coming to a startling realization: even if I did mix in as many original summons as I intended to, the number of summons between each character wouldn't be very even. As I'm sure many of you remember, in Kingdom Hearts: Dual Keys, I made sure that Ventus and Sora had an equal number of summons to use (two from the original continuity, and one new one), but this time around, that's proving to be a little bit harder. I blame this on the fact that I'm trying to organize the summons between all the Keyblade wielders on the team, and as I'm sure you've all figured out by now, that number reaches a grand total of six. SIX Keyblade wielders! Not an easy feat, seeing as I'm not even sure if I'm going to use all the canon summons. So, for now, I'm angling to set it up so that everyone gets at least one or two.

Regarding the summon itself, yes, it is Merida from Brave, and I know I kept the interactions pretty short, but this is mainly because I believe she's a likely candidate to be one of the New Seven Hearts, and I'm hoping to avoid making a similar mistake that I had made in the original version of Keyblades of Future Past's Frozen chapter. That being one that required me to go back and rewrite the thing so that it would be a little closer to canon and make things easier on myself when I reached that point in a story. Otherwise, I just hope I did the Scottish princess justice with her appearance here.

Another thing I want to point out is that originally, I didn't intend on Roxas getting his first Shotlock here, but as the boss fight went on, I couldn't help but feel like it would be a good time for someone to access a new power like that. Yes, I'm well aware that it may seem a bit rushed, seeing as he just learned his awesome Dual Style last chapter, but I'd just like to point out that's an ability unique to him, and this is one that anyone on the team could have. It's high time he got something like that too. As for what you're wondering, yes, that is basically a Shotlock style version of Roxas's Magic Hour ability. I renamed it as Thirteenth Hour for a few reasons. One being that Magic Hour is also the name of one of Aqua's most powerful abilities, and I wanted to avoid having two powers of the same name. The other should be obvious: Roxas was Number XIII of the Organization. Nuff said.

Speaking of stuff Roxas got, yes, he now has a summon charm, too, but we won't be very likely to see who it is for a little while. Of course, if you know you're Disney cartoons, you've probably already guessed who it is just based off of the charm's description. I mean, a duck wearing a wide-brim hat? Come on! How much more obvious can it be? Well, there is one way I can make it obvious: by making the hint his catchphrase: "Let's get dangerous."

Rounding out the talks of stuff that had been learned today is Sora finally learning how to travel to other worlds on his Keyblade Glider. Not really too much to be said there, and that's the whole reason why we didn't go into too much detail on the matter in the story. The only difference between the two, as far as I can really tell is the area their flying through, how they need to wear their armor, and the fact that it doesn't seem like there's any gravity in the Lanes Between. I know I said in the previous story it would've been dangerous right now for Ven to travel between worlds that way, but that was mainly because of how bad the Heartless were in that story. Things are a little more normal now, so no worries there.

Now, let's talk about everyone's form changes on Timeless River. Obivously Sora, Donald, and Goofy's didn't change from their in-game versions, so let's just get on the topic of the other three's. Now, Ven and Roxas didn't really see too much change, aside from looking like they were drawn in the style of old cartoons, but it's Xion's that I feel we should really talk about. I'll say it plain for you all; yes, Xion's Timeless River attire is the outfit she wore at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3, and for some good reasons. One being that I just think she looks really good in that outfit, and it seems like it'd be a shame to not have her wearing it or something close to it until we reached this series' version of that story. It just isn't as detailed as it was when we first saw it, obviously, but it is the same outfit, and it's distinctly hers, even if it does have some similarities to Namine and Kairi's. Another being...well, the only other option I could think of for her and Roxas's Timeless River outfits was to have them wearing their Organization coats, and they've already had to endure wearing those things enough as is. Plus, in the case of this series, I feel like making them wear those things again just wouldn't be right. Not after all that had happened to them.

I hope you guys also caught all the various references in this chapter, be it the ones to classic cartoon gags (I mean, come on! Why wouldn't I include stuff like that after sending them to a world like Timeless River?) and the ones to the very first story of this series that were made by Ven. Yeah, I think it's been made quite clear by now he doesn't have as many fond memories of the events that took place in Keyblades of Future Past as some of you were probably thinking, but considering some of the things he and his friends saw, along with certain individuals that they met (*cough* Evil Sora), can you really blame him?

Final note of importance would have to be on how Sora and Xion have now maxed out the powers of Valor Form. I mean, it's not like that would be too difficult; Valor Form is the easiest of all the Drive Forms to power up. It literally gets stronger with every hit you land on any enemy, so I do think it wouldn't be too hard to level it up to maximum by the time you get to Disney Castle in the game, assuming you dedicate a fair amount of time to leveling and powering it up on the other worlds before you go there, and as I've already indicated, Sora and Xion have been using theirs quite a bit for both missions and training, especially here. Don't worry about Roxas getting jealous of that though, because he'll be getting his own Drive Form come the start of next chapter. I was going to have it so that he and Sora both got the Wisdom Form at the end of this chapter, but by the time I got to the whole confrontation with PJ, I felt like the chapter had gotten a good stopping point, and it had already become as long as it is, so what better place to end it?

Well, I think that covers all the chapter details I wanted to go over, so let's move it along to review answers, shall we? Fair warning, I'm probably not going to answer very many this time, mainly due to the length of this chapter, so please don't be too disappointed if yours doesn't get answered, assuming there's anything in said review to answer. It's likely because it will be answered very soon by the preview for next chapter, or I'll see about trying to answer it in the next episode of Studio News, which you'll be able to watch on my YouTube channel Studio Fandom. Please be sure to check that out if you haven't already. It's a great way to keep up with what I'm doing and know what I'm working on at that current time, and what I'm most likely going to work on next.

Let's start with "Dragon Rider 66", namely in regards to your comment on how Roxas and Xion keep getting their old Keychains back. Let me just say that there is a good reason for that, maybe even more, but the primary reason is simply because those things are better in their hands than the Organization's. Plus, it adds more to the mystery of their last few days with the Organization, something that they still only have sporadic recollections of, save for the moments when they fought against that Heartless horde with Riku and Ventus, and what happened before they entered the Virtual Twilight Town. That mystery will be solved by the end of this story though. Plus, I have it in my head that each of those Keyblades is reflective of the powers used by the members of the Organization, and like the old saying goes fight fire with fire. Don't worry, they will still get some Keychains that appeared in Kingdom Hearts 2, but Sora's going to need to get a few of those too, ya know. I mean, his collection currently only consists of the ones he got in the last story, and he didn't get every Keychain from KH1, so he's going to get a few more as well.

Now, to everyone who proposed alternative ideas for what to call Roxas's new Dual Style ability; they are pretty good names, but keep in mind that all of Command Styles that form like that only use two powers, and I felt like going with a name that did not speak out to that would inadvertently open myself up to ideas for other combinations, some of which would not be possible, since Roxas is mainly creating these styles using two of the three basic ones: Firestorm, Diamond Dust, and Thunderbolt. I mean, there's a chance he could combine one of those with his Tier One Unique Command Style, when he finally learns it, but it will still only be that with one other Style, so better to keep it simple. Again though, they were still some pretty good names, and I do wish I had considered at least one or two of them, so thanks for your input on that.

"Monkey D. Conan", regarding your question about Sora's "fear" of being a teacher. Just to clarify, it's not that he's afraid of the job, as we've seen with how often he's actually coached Xion and/or Roxas in this story; he just doesn't feel like he's ready to have that level of responsibility, especially with someone so close to his age. In answer to the actual question, it's really more like a little of both. You'll see what I mean when we get to a certain point in this story. I guess this chapter also answered your question on who would be the next person to get an upgrade moment, but there will still be more of those to come, and yes, Ven will get a chance to showcase his new talents as a master very soon, be it in general or in front of Aqua. As far as your final question goes, there may be a little bit of tension between one or both of the two couples when that reunion happens, but it will be more so in the case of Aqua and Ven, since as you said, it's been eleven years, and Aqua will need a bit more time to adjust to the changes that her significant other has gone through. Kairi and Sora won't have nearly as much trouble, given that it's only been a year for them, and the events of the last story, so I wouldn't expect to see too much drama between them.

To the "Guest" of 4/27/2020 who asked for my opinion regarding four matters on Final Fantasy 7 Remake. 1) It's not the first time that point has been brought up. I mean, as fanfiction writers, we create new timelines all the time for these characters and their franchises.

2) I don't think there was any evidence that would suggest that about Sephiroth and Aerith. At least, not as far as I could see. Maybe they were just given visions of that timeline by the lifestream, but I'm pretty sure they are from that timeline.

3) I feel like that scene in Chapter 12 would suggest that Aerith passed certain knowledge to Marlene as a way of calming her down, as a similar instance seems to have occured with Red XIII.

And finally, 4) I honestly thought the ending was pretty good. Set things up nicely for when Part 2 eventually comes out, and opens up imaginations of the fans in many different ways.

"Guest" of 4/27/2020 with the six questions/comments, I feel like I've answered at least one or two of those questions just with the chapter's main content, but I'll try to answer as many of the remaining ones as best as I can, though it won't be in any particular order. Herc and Phil will find out about what happened to Zack by the next visit to Olympus Coliseum, but it probably won't be in a way that you'll be expecting. I've never really thought about whether or not Riku had a Dive to the Heart, but if it did happen, I'd imagine that you'd be right in guessing that he probably brushed it off as a random dream. As for where Disney Town/Castle would be located on its own version of Earth, assuming they are in their version of USA, I would probably have to say it would be somewhere in...either Florida or some place like Hollywood. Again, that's just my best guess.

To the "Guest" who made a suggestion for Kairi's Sleeping Worlds attire, both on 4/28/2020 and 4/30/2020, I love the suggestions you made, though the second one does seem like a more detailed version of the first, and will take it into consideration for when I reach that story. I will say that there is a good chance it will be used, just with some slight modifications here and there.

"blaze namikaze", all I can say right now is that Aqua and Kairi will be at the Castle that Never Was during the events of the final confrontation, though whether or not they take part in any of the "final" fights with Xemnas...sorry, no spoilers. Also, yes, I will be writing a Dream Drop Distance story for this series. You can see at least a basic summary for each story in the Keyblades Unleashed Series on my profile, so feel free to check those out if you're interested.

"ElecFlameFox", I'm not sure just yet if I would be implementing elements from FF7 Remake into this story or not, but if I do a full-fledged FF7 crossover in the future, there is a very real chance I will do so in that. As for your other question, I can't say that I have heard of that before. As for it being implemented if I like it, well that would depend on several different factors, but the biggest one would be whether or not it shows up in Beyond the Worlds.

"Guest" of 5/9/2020, there is a chance that I might include additional worlds, but I'm also hoping that I'll be able to stick with the Seven Sleeping Keyholes thing that 3D had, so if anything, I may end up replacing one or two of those worlds with a different one. I'm not going to give away which worlds would appear though, but I will say that there may be a chance that we'll see a Star Wars world appearing there, if for no other reason than to better play up the fact that the worlds that are visited in that story may sometimes have the heroes visiting past versions of their friends that haven't met them yet. Other than that, no spoilers.

"Guest" of 5/13/2020, that is actually a very good title for a KH version of Injustice. "Kingdom Hearts: Forsaken". Has a very nice ring to it. If someone does write a story like that at some point in the future and sees this, they should keep that in mind.

"The Keeper of Worlds", Hades was referring to his encounter with the other Sora way back in Keyblades of Future Past. I guess you just forgot about that since its been a while since that story had been published and finished.

"cshan974" or "masterbuilder03", whichever name you prefer. First off, I have no idea what this splatoon world is that you are talking about, so I'm afraid that I can't implemnt it at any point, especially not the next world after this one, since that had been decided since before this story even started. As for my least favorite KH boss, if you're referring to the ones from just KH1, I'd probably have to say either Sephiroth (because he can just knock you down to one point of health in one attack, even if you have full health) or one of the extra bosses. You know, the ones that you fight on Neverland and Agrabah. They are just so annoying, especially since you have to go an extra few miles when fighting them. But if you mean in the KH series as a whole, I'd say it's probably between Xaldin or the KH2 and the KH3 Data Boss versions of Luxord. The first time I fought Xaldin, and every time after, every time I try to use a Drive Form I always end up being forced into Anti-Form, and ultimately getting beat because of that. Even if I go through several areas without using a Drive Form beforehand, every time, I go for a Drive Form and BOOM! Anti-Form. In the case of the latter though, it's more to do with that whole Time thing that you're forced to endure when fighting Luxord. I just can't handle dealing with that all the time, more so in the case of the KH3 Data Boss than KH2's regular boss...Phew! Okay, I think that's my rant for the day.

"Guest" of 7/12/2020, I'm with you on that. Kairi needs to be given a chance to shine in a big KH game. I mean, she got something like that in Melody of Memories, from what I've seen of it so far, but we need something that's closer to what we get in a typical Kingdom Hearts game. Maybe we'll see her rocking it in the next saga of Kingdom Hearts when the battle with the Foretellers begins. As for how the Foretellers will come into play in the Keyblades Unleashed Series, assuming they do at all...well, I can't say that I really know for certain if I'll have them play a part just yet. I guess that depends on what we see in the future KH games, and whether or not that influences whether I'll really be able or want to continue this series after Beyond the Worlds. I mean, I'd like to, but with how much I have in mind already up to that point...well, I don't want to say that it will serve as the definitive end of the series, but I don't want to make any promises that anything else will happen after it right now either. Oh, and thanks for that bit of info on what their names are loosely based on. Now I've got even more reason to be suspicious of them and believe that Luxu and the Foretellers are all going to be bad guys, save for maybe Ava.

"Guest' of 8/21/2020 (wow a lot of Guest reviews getting answered this time around), I had actually considered working SAO into Beyond the Worlds, but my original idea was to use the SAO video game series timeline. After seeing your suggestion of using the events of Ordinal Scale and the reasoning behind why it would work so well though, I think that may actually be the better idea. Thanks for that.

And finally, "Guest" of 11/2/2020, I actually was not aware of that book series, but it does seem somewhat interesting. If I get a chance to, I may look into it a little more later on, so thanks for that little heads up.

Okay, so I ended up answering a few more reviews than I originally thought I would, but no worries. At least I got a lot of them answered, and now we can finally get to the good part of this author's note that I know you all look for the most. Onto the Preview!...

They're back on the road again and off to another new world! Or at least they would be, but something very interesting has come up before they're even half way to the next world. Twilight Town has reappeared on the map, and despite the good fortune this may seem to be, the Keyblade Legion feel very suspicious of this development. It doesn't help that a recent surge of returned memories has allowed Roxas and Xion to remember just how often the Organization had gone to that world, so what else is the team to do than investigate. Luckily, their return to Twilight Town is met with not only enemies, but also a much more pleasant surprise as well. A fated reunion with a certain pair that Sora and Ventus have been very eager to see for some time now is just around the corner, next time!

That's right, everyone. As Rafiki said in The Lion King, "It is time!" The return of the girls is finally here! Or it will be come next chapter. Until then, please be sure to check out the Studio Fandom YouTube channel and subscribe to it if you haven't already, and as always...

Please read and review, and see ya real soon!