AN: This is a short chapter, and I apologize in advance for that.

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and Fullmetal Alchemist belong to their rightful owners, NOT ME!

"WOULD YOU TWO BE QUIET!" Donald screamed as the gummi ship narrowly missed a large asteroid. If anything had been learnt since the group had left Destiny Islands, it was that Sora and Ed knew how to get on each other's nerves. Sora had been pestering the poor boy for explanation after explanation from the moment they'd left, and Ed had had enough. Before long their discussion had deteriorated into a rather distracting shouting match. Distracting enough that Donald had almost steered the ship into a giant space rock. Since no-one wanted to end up road kill, or space kill, or the focus of Donald Duck's wrath, the boys decided to drop the argument until they arrived at Radiant Garden, where the King could give a proper explanation.

But Sora was too tense to just sit still, he decided to try fishing for some different answers and leaned over to talk to Al. "So, uh, can you do that sparky thing too?"

Al turned away from the window that he'd been glued to the entire ride; he didn't seem to understand what Sora was talking about. "Sparky thing?" He looked at Ed for an answer.

The older brother thought for a moment and then seemed to realize what was going on, "Oh, I think he's talking about alchemy."

"Alchemy?" Sora looked between the two brothers.

"Wait I think I know about that!" Kairi chimed in, "It's that ancient magical science that can turn lead into gold right?"

"Well, I wouldn't describe quite like that," said Ed, "And where I come from turning lead into gold is actually illegal…among other things." Sora pondered what exactly he meant by the last statement.

"You mean that alchemy is a common thing on the world you come from?" Riku asked, he was suddenly very interested in the conversation.

"Yeah," replied Ed, "The only thing I've seen since leaving that even closely resembles it is what those moogles in Radiant Garden can do, what do you guys call it? Item synthesis?"

"So you can make items?" asked Sora.

"Not really," answered Al, "I mean, we could, maybe, if we tried, but we specialize in manipulating objects to change their shape and composition. Oh, and we have to always abide by the law of equivalent exchange!"

"What's that?" asked Sora

"Something that you won't be able to wrap your tiny mind around." Was Ed's response.

Sora felt the anger welling up again, "You think you're so smart!"

"I am smart, I'm a genius, it's in the definition." Ed leaned back and closed his eyes, he had a sly smile on face that was really pissing Sora off.

"Shorty!" Sora whispered. Ed immediately snapped back to attention.

"WHO ARE YOU CALLIN' A MOUSY LITTLE PIPSQUEAK?"

"SHUT UP!" Donald quacked as the ship banked sharply to the side to avoid some space junk. "I'M TRYING TO DRIVE!"

The kids got quiet, even Goofy wasn't saying anything. When he felt it was safe to breathe again, Sora decided to ask what had been nagging him for a while. "What exactly happened to your world?" though he felt like he already knew the answer.

The two brothers looked at each other; they didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. Finally Ed responded, but he didn't look at the group when he said it. "It…was destroyed." Sora looked down, he'd expected that.

Al continued the explanation, "According to your king, a world is destroyed when the keyhole to its heart is opened, allowing it to be consumed by darkness…by the heartless." Sora nodded to indicate that that was the truth. "But why, why would someone open the keyhole and put the world at risk like that?"

No-one answered, a million possibilities were flooding through Sora's mind, as well as memories of the day he'd fainted, the feeling that one of the stars was missing from the sky. The missing star, that must've been their home. Sora knew what it felt like to be ripped from your world, he felt bad for them.

It was Ed who broke the silence, "Anyway, we woke up in that Radiant Garden place and we received these weird key-weapon-things, and that mouse-king-guy said that he'd explain everything after-"

"THAT'S KING MICKEY TO YOU!" This time Donald had turned around to scream right into the back seat of the ship. He wasn't looking where he was going, and wasn't paying attention to where he was steering. The ship suddenly lurched downwards which drew his attention back to the controls. He'd accidently sent the ship into a rapid descent. The good news was that they were at Radiant Garden, the bad news: they were about to crash into the castle at top speed in a rented gummi ship!

AN: Sorry for the really short chapter, but it was just travel so I didn't want to drag it out. Hope you liked it.