AN: And now for some action, and the Elrics make their debuts, kinda. They were in the last chapter but they didn't do anything so it doesn't count. This is really my first time writing a battle scene, so I hope it's clear. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, no matter how much I wish I did

Sora heard a shuffling sound and looked up to see a large black shape only inches away and ready to slash at him with powerful claws. It took him a second to realize what was happening, but he managed to dodge roll out of the way at the last second. When he was back on his feet he turned to face his attacker, only to find himself face to face with a heartless. "A neoshadow…" Sora said to himself, but he had never seen one on The Destiny Islands before, and something didn't seem right. It seemed like it was bigger than they usually were and Sora had a bad feeling that it was stronger too. But this wasn't a problem, Sora knew how to handle a heartless, it was his area of expertise. He summoned his keyblade, and readied his battle stance. "You wanna fight? Come an' get it!"

The Heartless let out a strange sound between a growl and a hiss, and lunged at Sora. Right before it attacked, Sora thought he'd caught a glimpse of a strange glowing mark on its chest, which didn't make sense because neoshadows weren't emblem heartless. But he didn't have time to think about it, because within a split second, the heartless was on top of him again. It wasn't just stronger it was faster, and it was all Sora could do to keep from getting ripped to shreds by its sharp claws. Its quick movements and fast swipes were keeping Sora on the defensive, and weren't giving him any time to attack back. If he tried to dodge roll out of the way, the heartless would close the distance faster than he could think of an attack.

Desperate, Sora leapt from the path onto the beach, and dashed across the sand towards the water. He hoped that the shifting sand would slow it down. He turned to defend himself and was relieved to find that the plan had worked, a little. The heartless was having a harder time keeping its footing in the sand and actually slipped a few times. Good Sora thought now I can take it. The slower movements gave Sora a chance to examine the heartless and he saw the glowing symbol he had questioned before. It looked like a circle with some sort of diagram inside and it was glowing on the neoshadows chest, it glowed brighter right before the neoshadow attacked which helped Sora anticipate its moves a little better, and also led him to believe that it was somehow involved in the heartless's improved skills.

The heartless finally managed to get its footing and come at him, but it was slow enough this time that Sora was easily able to dodge the attack and strike back. He swung the keyblade and made contact with the side of the heartless's head. The creature let out garbled screech and tumbled backwards across the beach. Some of the dark energy began to dissipate from the wound, but the heartless didn't disappear. Sora watched in confusion as it limped back to its feet. You gotta be kidding me! He thought I can't be that weak, that attack should have finished it! But his thoughts were interrupted as something sharp collided forcefully with the side of his face.

Sora went rolling through the sand and dropped his keyblade in the process. When he managed to sit up he was dazed and confused. His head was throbbing, he was pretty dizzy, and he had a bad feeling that he'd swallowed some sand. But what concerned him the most was what had hit him. A second neoshadow heartless was standing in the breakers, where Sora had been only a moment before. It had snuck up behind him and attacked when he wasn't looking. Sora put his hand up to the side of his face where the heartless had attacked him. When he pulled it away, there was blood on his gloves. "Great…" he said to himself. He put his hand back to his face to try and stop the bleeding and throbbing. He stumbled to his feet and looked around for the keyblade, but it was nowhere to be seen. Now he was up against two super-powered heartless with no weapon.

"Oh no…" he said as he heard a hissing sound from behind him. He turned to see a third neoshadow approaching the battle. "Oh come on! Since when do they hunt in packs?" All three heartless were closing in on him, and he was in no shape to fight. He was surrounded, injured and his weapon was missing. The only thing he could think of was that it really sucked that after all he went through he was about to be beaten by a bunch of neoshadows . The heartless lunged and he closed his eyes.

He didn't notice the footsteps or the slashing sounds, but he heard the heartless screech in pain, and when a few moments passed and he was still alive, he figured that something must have happened. Sora opened his eyes and almost couldn't believe what he saw. A boy he'd never seen before was standing with his back to him. He had blond, braided hair and wore a long red coat that was torn at the bottom and had a strange cross-like symbol on the back, and, was that a metal arm? But what caught Sora's attention was the weapon in the boy's hand, he was holding a keyblade. It was silver and red and the handle resembled an Ouroboros symbol with a snake eating its tail, and the shaft looked like a cross with another snake wrapped around it, the same symbol that was on the back of his coat. The keychain was a small metal disk with a circular, diagram-like symbol carved into it. The shock of seeing another keyblade bearer and not dying was too much for Sora and he collapsed into the sand, then again, it may have been that his headache was making him dizzy. The boy turned to look at him. He had golden eyes that glowed with a fierce determination. He looked Sora up and down as if he was trying to size him up. Finally he spoke.

"You're not Sora by any chance are you?" he asked. Sora looked surprised; this guy knew who he was?

"Y-yeah," Sora managed to respond.

The guy looked at him and then at the heartless that were starting to recover and then back at him. "Really? Because I was told you were some all powerful keyblade master who could defeat any heartless, but you're just a kid."

Sora couldn't help getting angry, who was this guy anyway? "I'm not a kid! And look who's talking Shorty!" Well, he was short.

"WHO'RE YOU CALLIN' SO SMALL YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE HIM WITH A MAGNIFYING GLASS?"

Sora smirked, Guess I struck a nerve he thought but that's what he gets for calling me a kid! He was so busy gloating, and the other boy was too busy fuming that they didn't see that the heartless were coming at them again. Luckily, a convenient bolt of lightning knocked them out of the way. It also got the boys' attention.

"Sora! Are you okay? Ah! You're bleeding!" Kairi came running towards Sora at full speed, followed by Riku, and a few people Sora hadn't expected to see: Donald, who was obviously the source of the lighting, Goofy, looking very excited, and another boy who bore a striking resemblance to the one who had saved Sora and who also possessed a keyblade.

"I-I'm fine!" Sora lied as Kairi reached up to examine his wound.

"Liar!" she accused. "Donald! He's hurt can you heal him?"

"Right!" Donald turned and cast a cure spell. Sora was enveloped in a green light and when it faded, the pain and blood were all gone. "Now make yourself useful and help us get rid of those things." Donald yelled before casting a nasty fire spell that threw the heartless farther down the beach.

"Where's your keyblade?" said Riku, noticing that Sora was unarmed.

"I uh, might have, uh dropped it…" Riku just stared at him.

"Really?" he said, the question sounded more sarcastic than curious.

"Oh! Like it never happens to you!" Sora retorted. Riku looked up for a moment as if trying to remember. After a second he shook his head, he had a sarcastic grin on his face. "Well we're not all perfect" mumbled Sora under his breath, but Riku wasn't paying attention anymore.

He turned to the blond boy, "Can you cover him while he looks for it?" he asked.

The boy looked at Sora, "Yeah sure." He responded, he almost sounded bored. He then looked at the other boy who resembled him.

Sora followed his gaze and observed the other stranger. He had the same golden eyes and long blond hair as the first one, but he wore it in a pony tail and his bangs were cut shorter and parted to the side. He wore a similar jacket but it was short and blue instead of long and red, it had the same symbol on the back though. Both boys wore mostly black clothing under their jackets accessorized with belts and chains and zippers, as that was fashionable lately. The one in red seemed to have some sort of fancy pocket watch attached to his belt, and the one in blue had, was that a cat plushy? The one in blue also had odd spiked shoulder pads and spikes on his shoes. Sora turned his attention to the keyblade the second boy was holding. It was mostly metal with a round handle surrounded by spikes on the outside and a spiked half circle at the end of the shaft. The keychain looked a lot like the first boy's, but the circle looked different.

Sora looked at Kairi and then back at the boy, "Can you protect her for me please?" the boy looked Surprised.

Kairi, "Excuse me! I can fight too ya know!" she summoned her flowery keyblade as if to make a point.

"Yeah, I know." Said Sora, "Just, fight with him, okay?" Kairi scowled, the boy in blue smiled.

"You can count on me!" he seemed nice, nicer than the first one anyway, Sora felt like he could trust him.

"Great!" Sora didn't waste any more time, he ran towards the shoreline where he was pretty sure his keyblade was. Several more neoshadows had descended onto the beach but Riku and the others were handling them pretty well. Whenever one got to close to the unarmed Sora, the blond boy would knock them out of the way.

"Found it!" Sora screamed with joy when he finally located his keyblade half buried in the sand.

"Look out!" it was the blond boy's voice. Sora looked up to see a neoshadow about to pounce on him, and he hadn't dug out his keyblade yet. Suddenly a wall of rock shot out of the ground and the heartless flew into it with a painful smack. Sora turned in shock to see the blond boy with his hands on the ground. Blue sparks were traveling from his hands, into the ground and up into the wall.

"H-how did you just-"Sora didn't even know how to finish the question. The boy smirked; he clapped his hands and touched his right arm, which was in fact made of metal. The top of the arm extended into a blade that glinted in the sunlight.

"It's just something I can do." He said, Sora grunted, Show off he thought, he turned and grabbed the handle of his keyblade; he gave it a sharp tug and yanked it out of the sand. He almost fell backwards from the momentum but managed to regain his footing in time to smack away the neoshadow who'd collided with the wall.

"Let's finish this." Sora was all serious when he said it, he'd had enough of these strange heartless, and he wanted answers.

"If you wanna kill them, you have to attack the circle." Said the blond boy, pointing at the glowing circle on the heartless's chest. So that is the source of this weird power Sora thought and would it have killed him to tell me that sooner? The blond boy continued, "And it helps, if you hit them at the same time." He held up his own keyblade and Sora understood what he was saying.

They charged towards the heartless and swung their keyblades at the creature's chest, they hit the circle at the same time and the creature exploded into a cloud of darkness and then vanished.

Sora collapsed from relief, not even caring that he was sitting in the water, "Finally…"

"And this is why we didn't want you to come here! Agh! I knew something was up!" Kairi yelled. Donald had explained that something big was beginning to happen and that they had been sent by the king to retrieve Sora and his friends. And as the group walked towards the gummi ship on the other side of the island, Kairi had taken the chance to lecture Sora about not keeping secrets from his friends, especially when they can help him fight.

"Sorry." Sora said for the fifth time, but he was only half listening. He was thinking about how much stronger the heartless were, and those weird symbols…

"Did you notice?" Riku had snuck up next to Sora to talk.

"Notice what?" Sora asked

"The symbols on the heartless look like the ones on those boys' key chains." Sora thought about and realized Riku was right. Riku continued, "I think they know more than they're letting on."

They arrived at the gummi ship. Sora, Riku and Kairi had agreed to go without a second thought, if the worlds were in danger, then it was their job to save it. But he was curious about these new keyblade bearers, and he wanted answers.

"Hey!" Sora waited until the two boys were looking at him. "Why don't you tell us exactly what's going on?"

The two boys looked at each other and then the one in red responded. "Wish I could, but I don't really get it all myself, why don't you wait for that king of yours to explain it?"

"Hey! Show some respect!" Donald fumed in response to the King remark.

"He's right, brother, that was rude!" Said the boy in blue.

"So you're brothers?" Asked Sora, that explained the resemblance.

"Oh! That's right we never introduced ourselves!" The boy in blue continued, "I'm Alphonse Elric!"

"And I'm his older brother Edward Elric, also known as the Fullmetal Alchemist."

Sora stared at them, "If you're the older brother then why are you the shorter one?"

"WHO'RE YOU CALLIN' SHORT!"

AN: Hurray for Short jokes I remembered Sora reacted badly to being called "kid" by a couple of characters and thought that that was a funny parallel to Ed's Short rants. They're both kind of hot headed, so I feel like they'd get on each other's nerves a lot. But I think they'd probably also be friends because they both have good hearts. Anyway, I hope you liked it.