"ah, disney town!" pete said as he and maleficent walked through the alleyways of disney town.

"i wonder if da' good people will sleep soundly again knowin' that captain justice has retuned?" he said.

"silence, imbecile" maleficent said.

"remind me, why are we here again?"

"that's why" maleficent said as she pointed to one of the many booths the town had.

Pete could see that one of the booths had customers, a young boy with spiky hair and a girl with silver hair, one of them was easily recognized as sora, the runt that defeated pete and maleficent many times.

"so...?" pete said, clueless as usual.

"fool, do not focus on the boy, focus on his company, the girl."

pete was focusing as the girl was giggling at something stupid sora was doing.

"i sense power inside of her, a darkness waiting to be awakened." "sora puts his trust in her, and that trust shall be his undoing" maleficent said.

"okay, I got ya, so whats the plan?"pete said.

"listen closely"

"so these friends of yours work in that huge castle?!" Ria said, amazed by the size of the castle that overlooked disney town.

"yeah, donald is the court mage and goofy is captain of the knights." sora liked seeing ria's reaction to this new world.

This place was unlike anything she had ever seen. It was bright, colorful and it had a happy feeling to it, it was like being in an amusement park, there were even some booths that let you play games. One game involved using a machine to fire ice cream, another game was something called fruit-ball, which seemed cool, they even had a race track.

They soon came to the entryway of the castle gate, two men in armor were standing guard. when sora tried to pass them, they used their spears to block the gate.

"hey, let us through!" sora said.

"sorry, but the king and queen are not expecting visitors and the castle is closed to civilians during the million dreams festival." one of the guards said.

"but I know the king and the queen, I defended this place when the heartless tried to take over."

the two guards laughed at sora as he tried to explain. "sure you did" one of the guards said sarcastically "and I used magic to make my spear polish itself" the guards only laughed harder. "you caught us in a good mood son, why don't you go back to the festival before you get in trouble"

"now wait just a gawsh darn second!" someone yelled. A dog walking on two legs, dressed in a full set of armor. Sora recognized him as goofy.

"now listen here, both of you." the captain said to the guards. "sora here is my friend and he can come and go as much as he pleases, understand?"

"yes captian!" the two guards saluted and opened the gates for sora.

"its good to see ya, sora" goofy said.

"it's good to see you too, goofy"

"oh, and who's this?" goofy said as he noticed ria just standing there.

"this is ria" sora introduced

"nice to meet you, name's goofy, captain of the knights at your service." he said.

"im-"

"SORA!" ria heard a scream, when she looked in the direction of the scream she saw a white duck running towards sora, he was wearing a fancy mage hat. The duck, who must have been donald, had jumped into sora's arms and was hugging him.

"hey donald!" sora said. Ria was also introduced to him. As soon as sora's little reunion was over, the group set of for the kings throne. Donald and goofy were paying more attention to ria then they were to sora. They were both telling embarrassing story's about him. Ria could swear she saw him blush.

They soon came to a massive set of purple doors that looked big enough for a giant to use.

Donald knocked on the doors as hard as he could and instead of the large double doors opening, one normal sized door that was apart of the larger doors opened. They all walked inside the throne room, which was an incredibly huge and wide white corridor.

All the way at the end of the room was a golden chair that was defiantly the king's throne.

Ria was more than a little nervous, she and the others were just waltzing to a king's throne, unannounced.

Donald and Goofy might get away with it, due to their high political positions, and maybe even sora would be fine, but what about her? This king didn't know her, he might send her off to the dungeons, have her bound in the town square for all to see, maybe even execute her, have her head chopped off!.

Ria gulped while holding her neck, worry obviously painted on her face.

"Ria, is something wrong?" sora said looking at her from over his shoulder while donald and goofy were walking forward.

She shook her head and the group carried on walking. She'd be fine, sora was with her and so were his friends, they'd defend her if anything happened, And this wouldn't be the first time she escaped from a heavily guarded castle.

After walking through that huge corridor they soon came to the king's throne.

"good afternoon, your majesty" Sora, donald and goofy said at the same time.

Ria looked at the solid gold throne and instead of seeing a huge, tall and noble man of the people, she saw a tiny mouse. A mouse with two huge black ears and a very long, very thin black tail.

She was thinking about what she should do. should she bow or just say hi?

"Sora, good to see you again pal" the king got off of his throne and proceeded to shake sora's hand in cartoon like fashion, making sora's whole body shake up and down, it was so funny that ria let out a small giggle, which got the king's attention.

"oh, and who might you be?" the king said.

"i... i'm Ria, your majesty." she said as she bowed.

After introductions were over, sora and everyone else moved into the library, it was there ria met the queen minny, and her lady, daisy.

Sora had explained everything to the king, queen, donald and goofy. And judging the looks on their faces, ria could tell they were all concerned.

"unlock the worlds, but why would the organization want to do that?" the king said.

"well, the organization used the heartless to create kingdom hearts" donald recalled.

"right, and the only way a heartless could enter a world is if it's keyhole is open." sora said.

"well do we have some kinda plan?" donald asked.

"well, we do have one idea" sora explained "if the organization members are all Nobodys, that means they have heartless. And those heartless are holding their hearts. So if we release those hearts they'll go back to their body's.

"then they wouldn't be Nobodys no more!" goofy said.

"exactly" sora said,

Sora and the others were creating a game plan while Ria was looking through the library, she should have been helping them but she wasn't good at coming up with plans, and maybe she could find a book that described the heartless and nobodys in greater detail. Then she wouldn't be so confused whenever sora talked about them.

She found a book series that goes into great explanations of both the heartless and nobodys, but nothing about kingdom hearts, itself. The books had the author's name on the cover

written by Jiminy cricket -a proud member of the when you wish upon a star corporation.

She read these books for what seemed like hours, but was actually just a few minutes. Sora had soon told Ria that they were going to get the gummi ship ready, she decided to join them.

Sora, Donald, Ria and Goofy passed through a beautiful courtyard with gigantic hedges bushes that were cut and sculpted into many different shapes and sizes. They soon came to a hedge castle that had actual opening doors. Donald and goofy gestured for ria and sora to go first.

They were walking down a long metallic spiral staircase that was dimly lit, bright enough to see where you were going, but not bright enough for you to see very far.

"so Ria, whats your world like?" goofy said.

"yeah, you never really talked about your world." Said sora.

Ria took a moment to answer their questions, she didn't really know how to describe her home.

"well... it's kinda... it's sorta" she struggled with the words.

"hey it's okay, we'll just go to your world." sora said. Donald and goofy stopped walking down the stairs and they kinda had odd expressions on their faces.

"guys, whats wrong?" sora said.

"well... we can't go with you, sora" said donald.

"yeah we got duties we gotta attend to" said goofy.

Sora was a little hurt that his friends couldn't come with him, but he understood.

They soon came to the launch station, and the first thing ria could see was a huge, yellow and red colored ship.

Two little chipmunks then came down from their control room. Chip and dale were their names. They were wearing yellow aprons with little blue pockets on them, the two of them looked fairly similar except chip's fur was dark chocolate colored and he had a black nose and one bucked tooth. dales fur was more of a milk chocolate color, he had a red nose, two bucked teeth, and scruffy hair on the top of his head.

They said the gummi ship would take awhile to be ready for launch, that would give ria enough time to explore this place. It was such a beautiful world, and she really wanted to get familier.

"hey, since we have to wait, do you think it would be okay if I looked around for a while?" ria asked to sora, donald and goofy.

"uh, sure, I guess" sora said.

Donald and goofy asked her if she wanted them to come with her, but she turned them down.

She walked through the streets of the colorful town once more, just taking in the scenery.

This place was so odd yet so amazing at the same time, she loved everything about this world, the bright and vibrant colors, the cheerful and carefree atmosphere, the cartoonish yet friendly people. it was so dramatically different from her home.

"help! Help! I need some help here!" she heard a call for help from one of the alleyways and began to run to see what was going on.

A rather large, black furred cat was being surrounded by heartless, he tried to fight them off but to no avail. Ria summoned her keyblade and charged to help.

Three shadows and two large bodys (the fat ones that you have to hit from behind) surrounded her. She got into her fighting stance, once again raising her keyblade high above her head with the blade's teeth facing down and outstretching her palm. (riku's kh1 fighting style).

The shadows lunged themselves toward ria, she was able to strike them before they could scratch her with their sharp claws, she hit one so hard that the poor thing flew into the large body of a rather fat heartless, ria tried to swing her keyblade at the large body, but her weapon would just bounce off of it, staggering her. The large body raised it's fist and attempted to punch her, only for her to roll out of the way of it's attack. She jumped over it and delivered a hard slash to it's back, the large heartless disappeared in a cloud of black smoke and a heart flew out from it, the other heartless were a good distance away. Ria pulled her hand back and felt the charge of a dark fireball building in her palm, she had almost forgot she could shoot darkness out of her hands. She pushed her hand forward and released the dark fire she created, the fireball traveled a great distance and eventually hit the heartless right in its head (no wait, sora said not to use the darkness!) her mind reminded her.

She had to remember that no matter how powerful the darkness may be. Sora said not to use it, it changes people. she soon cut down most of the heartless, until they retreated by fading away into darkness, fleeing from the battle.

As soon as she was able to catch her breath, the large cat-man came up to her.

"thanks for savin' my life kid, I could have taken them by myself but thanks anyway." he said.

"sure... no problem" she said through her heavy breathing. Man, that fight really wore her out.

"pete, you bumbling moron" a woman soon approached and looked at the cat man who was known as pete. The woman looked turned herself toward ria and she was able to get a better look at the woman.

She had fair but green skin with shining, yellow eyes that were heavily shadowed with violet make-up and her lips were painted red. This dark woman's head was topped with a black-horned headdress and she was wearing a long, tattered black robe with a purple trim and maroon flare edges.

"and who might you be, my dear?" the woman asked.

"im-"

"well dis' is my good friend uh..." "whats your name?" pete said.

"i'm Ria."

"a pleasure to meet you ria, my name is maleficent" she introduced.

Ria wasn't exactly sure how to feel about maleficent, she just got this threatening vibe from her.

"i must thank you for assisting my associate by saving him from those vile creatures" maleficent said.

"you mean the heartless?" ria said.

"yes, the heartless. They travel from world to world, killing innocent people. They give us darkness users a horrible name." she said.

"you use darkness?" ria asked.

"why yes, I do. And I can sense the darkness in you child, a strong darkness." she continued "yet you hold yourself back, you push the darkness away. Why?"

"well, my friend... he said the darkness does things to people, changes them."

"lies." maleficent said "your friend has no idea what he is talking about. The darkness, much like the light, keeps balance, the darkness can be used just the same as the light" "the reason your friend sees the darkness as evil is because he is not strong enough to use it"

"well..." Ria was having second thoughts, maybe maleficent was right, maybe the reason sora looked down on the darkness was because he wasn't strong enough to control it, but ria wasn't having that hard of a time controlling it, and it was a powerful force. Maybe she should embrace the darkness.

"i can see you are conflicted, allow me to make the decision for you" she conjured an old wooden staff that was wrapped around a green orb, maleficent began channeling energy through it.

"wait I... I.." ria felt odd, it was as if the world around her was slowing, everything was getting blurry.

"relax... my dear, let the darkness care for you." maleficent said as she continued her ritual "sleep now, child"

"need... to sleep..." ria soon fell to the floor, giving in to the influence of the darkness, deep into a trance like sleep, she found herself unable to wake up.