A dark jungle, even darker than a normal jungle, ravaged by shadowy darkness, is in danger of being consumed by it. This jungle used to be beautiful; the shining sun glistened the leaves, and birds sang at all hours of the day. But now it is in danger of losing it's heart...
Kimba the white lion cub collapses on the dark grass and let's out a painful growl, "I failed... ugh..."
Bubu the adult male lion with a booboo on his face (a scar over his left eye) growls evilly at the little white lion. He has pure darkness emanating throughout his body, coming out visibly in wisps of dark black and purple shadows; shadows that don't have a light source.
The dark scar-eyed lion, Bubu, smashes Kimba's face with his big paws, "Ha ha! The jungle is mine!"
Sora storms in with his keyblade, "Not if I can help it!"
Bubu looks at him with a start, "W-w-Who are you?! A poacher!?"
The scarred lion is frightened, "I have to get out of here!" and then he jumps away into the bushes.
Sora runs after the big lion, but is stopped by a sound from the cub, "...halt."
Sora turns to see the white lion cub struggle to get up onto his paws, "My jungle's rules don't allow killing.", Kimba's feet are shaking, and he collapses again.
Sora nods in confirmation, kneeling beside the young lion, "Ok. I got it."
Kimba stares at Sora, "You can understand what I'm saying?"
Sora: "Yeah, it's uh...", The blue-eyed boy looks at Donald Duck who makes a quacking noise.
"...magic.", Sora smiles.
Kimba looks at them all, very bewildered.
"Anyway, drink this.", Sora uncaps a bottle, "It's a potion. You'll feel better."
Kimba investigates it with his nose, "A human invention? Sorry, I don't trust it."
Sora hesitant at the distrustful cub glances back at Donald and Goofy, then back at Kimba, "Uhh... but I really want you to get better, just a taste?", Sora asks.
Eyes half-lidded, the exhausted lion asks, "You actually care about the jungle and about me?"
"Yeah. That darkness everywhere, I can get rid of it all with this!", Sora holds up the keyblade.
The keyblade shines alittle bit.
"With that? You really can do that?", Kimba asks.
Sora responds happily, "Yeah!"
Kimba licks the potion, and satisfied with the taste introduces himself, "My name is Kimba, the White Lion. I'm the ruler of this jungle."
"I'm Sora!" Sora motions to the others, "And this is Donald!"
Donald quacks.
"And this is Goofy."
Goofy laughs, "Hyuk!"
The white lion cub gapes at them, who knows what he's thinking seeing those big anthro animals... Kimba just lets out an exasperated "Oh...".
Sora smiles watching the cub licking up some of the potion liquids, and then Sora motions to his allies, "We'll help ya out!"
Goofy & Donald nod, "Yuh-huh."
Kimba raises his voice powerfully, "OK! Please everyone, help me save the jungle from the darkness!"
The gang show off some powerful poses and they all reply, "Yeah!"
RIKU'S POV
Elsewhere in the jungle...
An evil voice echoes in the shadowy, blotchy jungle,
With all of the hearts collected, then we will start, Riku...
A silver-haired boy walks through the jungle. He has a black blindfold over his eyes, but somehow, he magically still has sight, just of another nature. He sees only black inky darkness most of the time, with flashes of what's really there, and sometimes what's invisible.
The fleeing, scar-eyed lion Bubu almost bumps into him, but Riku dodges skillfully, the lion is surprised, "Oh, oh Riku!"
Riku responds, "Have you discovered the white lion yet?"
Bubu sits down and tells Riku what happened, "Why yes, about that... I almost got the white lion's heart, but a boy poacher showed up and I had to run."
Riku feels his hair stand on end, even spikier than before, "That boy must be..."
Riku asks, "Did he by any chance, have big yellow clown shoes?"
The lion is surprised by Riku's excited voice and stutters, "He-he he did have big yellow shoes, but I don't know what clown means."
Riku looks down shaking his head, thinking, I really don't want to run into him... Just what would he think of me now?
Then Riku looks back up at the big scar-eyed lion, "Thanks, I need some time to think of a plan of action. That guy, really throws a wrench in to things."
The lion pauses for a moment, "As long as I get Kimba's territory in this new plan, then I'm still with you."
Riku responds calmly, "Of course."
The lion laughs evily in-between growling, "Grrah haha. Grrr..."
SORA & KIMBA'S POV
Back with Sora & his friends...
Donald Duck carefully waddles over to where the source of darkness is: a wispy evil aura emanating from a sparkly point on a tree; a very elderly looking tree with an enormous trunk.
Donald nods to himself, "Yep, the keyhole must be in this tree!"
The Duck waddles back to Sora, "We just have to seal it up."
Sora grasps his magical keyblade and walks forward a few steps.
He looks down to see there's a clear shallow pool of water around the tree, and wades in.
The water makes splishing noises as he steps through.
Goofy and Donald suddenly yell, "SORA!"
"Huh?", Sora says confused.
Sora turns to see dozens of glowing eyes from the dark jungle surrounding them.
Donald whacks a shadowy animal with their magic rod, "Hurry up! Do it!", he quacks.
Then a shadowy panther jumps out, attacking Kimba the White Lion, and Kimba gasps, "Ohno, Toto, you've been overcome with darkness!?"
The shadowy panther roars a beastly roar.
Sora hurriedly readies the keyblade to lock up the dimensional keyhole in the tree.
From the tip of the keyblade a light shines like a star, and then beams a shining, magic light into the tree. Then a sound like a door lock emanates from the tree and a bunch of sparkles dissipate around it.
The evil aura coming out from the tree fades away, and the shadowy animals with glowing eyes transform into just regular animals again; birds, zebras, antelopes, giraffes, etc.
The black panther collapses near Kimba, "Kimba, I'm... I'm so sorry, I was being controlled... I'm really not a bad cat..."
Kimba breathes out, "Yeah I know. The darkness was affecting you, but now the darkness in the tree has finally been destroyed. Sora & his friends saved us."
The black panther looks at them, "Sora? No way, that's one of them evil humans!" Then the panther looks at Sora's allies, "And what are they!?"
Kimba responds, "That doesn't matter, although humans have threatened our lives many times. This human has really saved us."
Kimba smiles at the three, "I'm grateful. Our kingdom is safe." Kimba smiles at Sora, "You're welcome to stay here as long as you like."
Sora replies, "Oh about that. Ya see, we travel a lot, not really staying in one place for very long..."
"Ya! We still got a lot of darkness to put out!", Goofy iterates while glancing over at a growling cheetah cub.
Kimba "Oh okay... well the jungle will always welcome you. Won't you everyone? These people are our friends."
The jungle animals respond, "Yes of course!" and reply confidently, "We can trust Kimba! He would never put our jungle in danger ever."
Sora stretches and pretzels his hands behind his head, "Ah, now that that's settled."
Sora smiles, "I'm kinda hungry..."
Donald sighs and waddles away, "Right, let's go!", then Donald mumbles, "The food here tastes like grass anyway."
Goofy sighs, "Donald...!"
Then they head back to their Gummi Ship after saying goodbyes.
RIKU'S POV
Riku lingers nearby, watching through his blindfold from some shadowy bushes. He overhears that Sora is leaving. The group, Sora, Donald & Goofy, walk away after saying goodbyes, leaving the white lion cub in an ambush opportunity. Riku feels relief, but also abit dirty for taking the opportunity to enact his, no, Maleficent's plans, and betraying Sora, always constantly avoiding him ever since they started exploring new worlds.
The dark lion, Bubu comes up behind Riku and growls, "That's the white lion, Kimba."
Riku pauses calmly, "Finally."
KIMBA'S POV
Kimba sits and smiles in the direction that Sora and the gang left and thinks to himself, The humans saved the forest, well isn't that a first! Maybe they're not so bad afterall...
Kimba turns around, only to be met with scary Bubu once again, and this time an unfamiliar human beside him.
Kimba bristles his fur at the human, "Who are you-?"
Riku sends Kimba flying with an aggressive shadow ball, then Riku motions to the dark lion Bubu which powers up the lion's darkness until it's eyes glow.
The dark lion lunges to bite the little lion cub, but Kimba skillfully dodges the bite.
Kimba growls, "I won't lose this time! Get out of my jungle!"
Riku summons shadowy magic, "Darkness!", darkness emanates from Riku's hand, and his dark sword appears.
Kimba roars angrily, "Get out!" and bites Riku. Riku is surprised by the bite and one of his feets dips into the shallow pool's water.
The blindfolded boy senses a powerful source from the pool, and it shines sparkling light all over him, "Huh, what is this...?!"
He can feel his dark power being suppressed, kind of like the feeling of getting the wind knocked out of him.
Suddenly light orbs fly around like fireflies and stick to him like glue.
Then, Riku begins to feel abit strange, he's disappearing! The light from the old tree envelopes him and sends Riku back to where he came from; rejected from the world that he doesn't belong in.
Bubu also gets hit by the light and disappears.
Kimba collapses, exhausted.
The other animals rush to his aid, "Kimba!". Kimba manages to open his eyes alittle bit, "I'm ok. Is everyone else ok?"
"Yes, thanks to you, Kimba!", they reply gratefully.
Kimba slowly falls asleep, "Good."
RIKU'S POV
Riku stands bewildered and alone, he seems to have been transported to Destiny Islands, his home world.
"That was the strength of his heart?", Riku motions to his own heart.
He quietly thinks to himself, I stand here again in Destiny Islands, but I'm not the Riku I use to be.
"If I could go back in time... would I still want to go down the path of darkness?", Riku asks himself.
Riku looks toward the sea, the sea that he was supposed to sail out on with Sora and Kairi and Highwind.
"Maybe I wouldn't, but whatever, it's too late to have regrets.", Riku clenches his fists and walks away.
Then he heads toward a dark portal on the small island where him & Sora always fought at.
THE END
Author's notes: Thanks for reading! I'm still learning how to write effectively so it might read abit weird...
Anyway, there's abit of an anarchronism with Riku's blindfold... (This takes place while he's being controlled by Maleficent in Kingdom Hearts 1) But I like him blindfolded so he wears it in this fic. :b
Also Toto the panther is pretending to be a "good cat" to live in Kimba's jungle in this version of him. (normally he is Bubu's evil lackey.)