My World

Chap 5 – Investigation

In King Mickey's palace, there was not a single corridor where sighs of anguish and grief were heard. The whole castle was filled with so much woe and despair that Mickey almost felt suffocated by the dark feelings in everyone's heart. But he didn't dare tell anyone of his true feelings for it would seem uncaring of him to tell them all that there was no need for grieving. He knew that sadness was a key component to the heart; it was an obstacle that must be overcome to become stronger and wiser. However, this much sadness was almost, unhealthy. He offered his condolences to Donald, and tried to make him feel better but to no avail, obviously his heart was the most damaged by the ordeal.

And though Mickey would've loved to try and comfort his dearest friend, there were more pressing matters that needed his attention. Apparently, this was not the only gruesome death that affected the people. Across the worlds he has been hearing that murders were springing up from Atlantica to Never Never Land.

There seemed to be someone out there trying to make some sort of statement. These people were targeting pervious members that had been against the spread of darkness caused by Maleficent and a group that called themselves, Organization XIII. Mickey had a strong suspicion that this had a connection to Organization XIII itself, but he believed they weren't one's to really go all out on savage murder sprees.

They were more calculative and desired to steal people's hearts for Kingdom Hearts, if they killed people – there would be no heart to take from. After death, the person's heart simply, disappeared, along with their soul and body. Perhaps they were trying a new angle of operations, maybe they wanted to wipe out half the cosmos so they could cultivate some sort of darkness from it, kind of like a slash and burn method. Mickey shivered at the thought, but highly doubted that was their plan – if they really WERE involved in this.

Though the Nobodies had no hearts and felt no remorse in taking lives, they weren't to keen in ripping people apart. If they were out to destroy someone it would be for obvious reasons and with minimum of fuss. Because they had no hearts – they weren't able to "enjoy" the destruction, the mayhem, the death – and thus took little care when destroying someone. But this person, they had a heart, and though shrouded with darkness as it was, they liked what they were doing and it was clearly shown in the level of intimacy he had with each victim.

The show he put on, it was like the killings were made to be looked at with horrified eyes.

Mickey shuddered again; this was not good, not good at all. This needed to stop before whatever plans this person had, or the Organization had, succeeded.

Mickey headed out of his chambers and began walking along the hallways of the palace. He saw Goofy walking along the corridors as well; he looked uncharacteristically sad an obvious result from his friend's loss. Mickey walked up to him and gently patted his arm.

"Hey Goofy…" he looked up at him sympathetically.

"Hello your majesty…" Goofy said glumly, his usual "Ahyuck" at the end of nearly every sentence had gone.

"Goofy, I know you're needed here to cheer up Donald, but I have an important favor to ask of you."

"What is it King Mickey?"

"I need you to find Sora, and tell him of the other terrible things that have been happening across the worlds. Tell him that it would greatly help the investigation of finding who's behind all this by searching for some sort of clue through the crime scenes. I, on the other hand," he begins to briskly walk away, "have other investigative things to look through."

Goofy watches as his king walks down the hall and disappears around a bend. It would seem that Mickey was almost apathetic to Donald's loss, but really Mickey was just trying to keep the kingdom together – he was always thinking things through clearly – most likely why he was the king. Goofy then started to make his way towards the palace's Gummi ship and made arrangements to meet up with Sora at Destiny Islands.

Harley and a few of the strongest deck of cards, found in the Queen of Hearts' army, pushed the last metallic barrel down into a secret hole the deceased queen had created. Harley panted as she watched the last barrel tumble down; she turned over to the card soldiers and dismissed them. After they had left she began looking around the palace to find the Joker.

It was tough work keeping tabs on her hubby, he never liked to stay put in one place to long and the construction of the palace was queer. There were rooms that led to brick walls, doors that wouldn't open, and stairs that led nowhere. She wondered how the Joker ever got around the place without getting lost. In fact she got so frustrated with it once, she kicked one of the doors opened and, unbeknownst to her, slammed the door into the Joker's face. When he found her at the other side of the door, he gave her a wallop of a beating that rendered her right ankle useless and she had to walk around with a limp for five days.

However, she partially blamed herself for her beating. The Joker seemed to adore the house; every room he went into had a different theme and a new surprise. One room had a bunch of toy chests lying around, and upon opening them, found magical toys which he amused himself for hours and days. In another room, there were thousands upon thousands of crayons, each a different shade of the rainbow. The Joker gleefully snatched up all the various purple and green shades and began scribbling on the wall. He usually used that room to think or plot – she sometimes heard him talking to himself, either to an imaginary Two-Face or Poison Ivy. Once she could have sworn that he was even having a conversation with an imaginary Batman.

He didn't like to be disturbed when he was in this room, but sometimes he didn't mind if she snuggled up against his foot or simply stood within close proximity to him, just staring at him.

Yes, her Puddin' was happy here, and whatever was good enough for him, was definitely good enough for her.

As she continued looking around the empty rooms and spiraling staircases, she finally found her Puddin' conversing with the Cheshire Cat out of a window. They were talking about something that was inaudible to her, and then they both burst out into laughter. As they were talking to one another, she noticed great similarities between the two, they both wore purple, well, the Joker wore purple, the Cat's fur was purple, and they both seemed to have grins permanently stuck onto their faces. Perhaps this was the reason for the Joker's sudden liking to cats.

"Uh Puddin'?" Harley spoke up; the Joker looked at her smiling as the Cheshire Cat began to fade away.

"Yes Pooh?" He took long strides with his long legs towards Harley. He seemed to be in high spirits today.

"I put all the barrels down in the ditch just like ya asked." The Joker patted Harley's head and lovingly put his arm around her waist.

"Fantastic Harley-kins! Now all we need to do is round up about – oh – few thousand or so heartless and Nobodies and then everything will be smooth sailing!" He lightly laughed as he began guiding Harley around the room aimlessly.

Harley's heart began pounding in her chest and she constantly looked down at her Puddin's hand resting comfortably around her waist. He really was in good spirits. Perhaps if she played her cards right, he might feel a little "friendlier" tonight. Suddenly the Joker pulled Harley close to him, taking one of her petite hands in his massive claw and began swinging across the room with her in a waltz, to a song that he only heard.

"Puddin'?" Harley looked up at him, she didn't want to break the moment between them, but she had a question on her mind that had been bugging her for sometime.

"Hmm?" The Joker closed his eyes and continued to waltz around the room.

"Where did ya find these, Nobodies, anyways? They don't seem like frequent visitors to Gotham if ya know what I mean." The Joker's eyes immediately opened wide and looked down at Harley, his pacing became a little faster.

"I didn't find them, because I wasn't looking for them," his voice then turned icy and Harley shivered when he whispered out to her, "they found me."

A/N:

From here on out, the chapters might get a little more in depth, psychological, and full of little symbolisms and metaphors. So you might want to be a little on your toes for that. But if anything, major points I want to stress I might just simply explain in author's notes.

Like, for example, my constant need to characterize everything the Joker is doing. You see, I put this in the Kingdom Hearts section because I was really only focusing my efforts on Joker and Harley and the rest would be the Kingdom Hearts universe, but seeing as how I'm introducing a character that not alot of people in this fandom don't know too much about - I just want you to understand him the way I understand him, so you can, well, GET IT! LOL!

And as for the Joker and Harley dynamics of their relationship - obviously I can't really divulge to much into it but I just wanted to show you that their relationship isn't all abusive and such. But in fact hte Joker could be compelled to act tenderly towards her and loving and caring - when in the right mood and frame work of course, he's still a mad man so feelings like that don't come around too often. Also I wanted to show his mercurial emotional/psychological state - one minute he could be hte happiest most harmless guy in the universe, next he wants to go and blow up a hospital. In a nut shell he's: Terribly bipolar, mixed with some schizophrenia, a heavy dose of homocidal tendencies, and vast amounts of insanity.

And as for Mickey - well - I always found him to be like, a kind of PSYCHIC! Like he doesn't really know whats going on persay, but his intuition really guides him in all the right directions. And I know I didn't really get to much into Donald's reaction -and I have a feeling I'm going to regret doing that (lol) but really I just couldn't put myself to do it because I would imagine him saying all of that sappy stuff with that...Donald voice. LOL! And then it would defeat the whole purpose of trying to put him into something grim and serious - because his voice just, really, doesn't allow for that sort of thing LMAO!