The bright and colorful lights as well as the cheerful and upbeat music is what amazed Raven the most when she stepped onto the pier. The scent of all the different deep fried foods over whelmed her sense of smell but what really sent her head spinning was the fact that all of this sat above the ocean water, held up by old wooden boards and metal fixtures.
"Are you alright?" Terra asked looking down at Raven.
She frowned some while testing the board before her. "It makes a lot of sound." She stated simply.
"It won't brake under you." He assured her, rubbing her hat covered head some.
"Let's go on the roller coaster." Sora cheered jumping up and down, pointing at the largest ride on the dock.
Raven's eyes turned into moons when she looked up at the height. She has never ridden anything like this thing before, and hearing the mix of terrified screams and cheers of fun made her heart skip a beat. A cold sweat formed on the back of her neck as she tried to picture herself on the ride.
Suddenly Vanitas was in front of her, blocking her sight of the nightmare. She gasped for air, not realizing she had been holding her breath that whole time.
He looked up at the ride then at her. "We can try something simple first." Vanitas suggested looking at Sora and the others.
Aqua and the girls all agreed with him, while Roxas and Sora whined about the fact they wanted to ride the best ride first before the girls would force them onto the Ferris wheel.
"Vanitas is right, we should let Raven get used to the idea of how the rides work." Ven piped in making the other guys shut their whining.
Kairi walked over a smaller coaster that was in the shape of a dragon. Small children were mostly riding it but Raven could see the look of joy in their eyes as they rode around in circles and up a small hill. "Let's try this one first."
"I don't all of us should go on." Riku said joining the red head. "Just one or two of us can ride with Raven on this, then as she moves up in rides more of us can join."
"That way no one has to endure the pain of trying to ride the small rides." Namine finished for him.
Kairi nodded with a big smile, "Namine and I will go with Raven on this on. All of you boys are too tall to fit in the small boxes."
"I'll take Raven on the next ride." Sora offered with his hands behind his head.
Raven smiled softly as her chest grew warm. These people were so kind to her even though she told them about being the guardian of the Heartless. They seemed to accept her and were willing to teach her so much about how they lived life. She was seeing how life was supposed to be. So full of wonder and fun, all the things she missed out on.
All that was left was getting the wrist bands to go on the rides, which Riku and Vanitas argued about who was going to cover for Raven. So while they were fighting, the three girls tossed in a few bucks together and paid for the new addition to their group.
Raven laughed at the looks on Riku's and Vanitas' faces. The two who probably took care of her the most felt they had to take care of her all the time. But she was realizing that in a group of friends, everyone took turns some way or another.
Roxas took the band from the worker and put it on Raven, while Terra scolded thee care takers about fighting.
"There you go." Roxas smiled making sure it wasn't too tight nor too loose.
"Thank you." Raven replied studying the plastic band.
Roxas was like Sora but a lot lighter about everything. Sora's smiles and jokes were enlightening but they also felt a little forceful for Raven. Roxas was gentler with his smile and jokes, making Raven feel more comfortable around him.
Namine and Kairi stood in line with Raven to get on the small coaster, while everyone else hung back to watch.
"Vanitas, you don't need to film this!" Namine snapped catching the dark man with his phone out.
"She needs to see the stupid faces she makes." He teased with a smug look in his amber eyes.
"It's more to mark the moment." Ven assured the blonde girl.
Soon Raven was pulling the bar to her lap. Her knees were pressed down in an awkward way but she felt better when she saw Kairi and Namine were stuck just like her.
"Are you feeling alright?" Namine asked from behind Raven.
She nodded, "Yes. My heart is racing is all."
The ride jolted forward, making Raven cling to the bar in front of her. The clicking of the wheels and the dull sound of the motor were mostly covered by the small kids around her getting ready for the small hill that was coming up.
Going up the hill was just fine but the small drop sent Raven's heart into her throat along with her stomach. Kairi noticed right away and covered her hand with her own. Raven looked at her and saw the soft and caring look in those blue eyes that it helped her calm down.
Though the gesture had calmed her mind, once off the ride her stomach proved how upset with the odd motion it was. Because she sent a good couple minutes bending over a trash bin.
Aqua was the one rubbing her back and holding the hair out of the way, while everyone else gave her some space.
"Are you feeling any better?" Aqua asked once Raven lifted her head.
Raven was paler than normal, her eyes were watering from throwing up but she managed to smile. "The ride was fun, I guess my stomach didn't like it too much."
Vanitas came over with a bottle of water and napkins. Which Raven took and cleaned up the best she could with. The water mostly got rid of the taste of acid from her mouth but not the feeling it left behind.
"Do you want to try other rides?" He asked tucking a stray hair of hers behind her ear.
Heat rushed to her cheeks and showed, everyone pretended not to notice.
"Anything you want to do next until you're ready for the next ride?" Ven asked.
Raven looked at all the booths, filled with games and prizes. "Can we try some games?" She questioned only to see Vanitas and Riku playing some strange game with their hands, saying shoot before forming a fist or holding out two fingers.
"Don't worry about them." Terra laughed as he and the others showed her the games.
"Which one you want to try?" Sora asked the newbie.
Red eyes trailed along all the games, trying to find one to play.
Each game had different prizes but Raven wasn't sure what kind of prize she wanted, let alone what she was able to do. She walked up and down the booths a few times trying to take in all the prizes at once until her eyes landed on a silver fox plush at the balloon popping booth.
"This one." Pointing out the fox to her new friends.
Roxas went up to the man running the booth and asked a couple of questions then came back. "She had to pick the grand prize." He stated with a small sigh. "All the balloons have a little tag under them, you have to spell prize with the tags in order to win it. Five darts, five balloons."
Raven puffed her cheeks some, "I can win." She replied simply.
"We'll all give it a try, right you guys?" Sora added with a big grin.
There was only room for four people at the booth at a time. All the girls went first along with Roxas. They counted down from three before throwing the darts. The results were not the winning kind. They had gotten mostly 'p's, a couple 'r's and 'z's but somehow failed to get any 'I's or 'e's.
"Our turn." Ven and Vanitas said together.
Sora, Riku, Ven and Vanitas gave their money to the worker before getting their darts.
Minutes later the results were the same.
"This game is rigged!" Vanitas snapped crossing his arms.
Raven's eyes were getting a bit watery, while Roxas and Kairi tried to cheer her up.
"You guys, I haven't gone yet." Terra piped up finally.
Everyone was quiet as he handed his money over. The world slowed down, while he paced the booth a couple of times before throwing the first dart.
"It's a 'z'." The game runner announced since Terra told him to check.
Terra did the whole pacing thing again, repeating the process four more times.
"The last letter is 'I'." The runner said with a smile. "You managed to spell 'prize'."
Everyone let out the breath they were holding and let out a cheer, while Raven remained frozen until Terra was holding the stuffed fox in front of her nose.
"You wanted it, and to mark the occasion." He smiled grew bigger as a large smile form on her face.
"Thank you!" She squealed taking it into her arms and nuzzling it.
"Are you ready for another ride?" Ven asked the over joyed young woman.
She stopped for a moment. "Not yet, since I can't take him on the rides with me. Can we look at that?" Her hand flew out and pointed at the haunted house.
"She would want to go in there." Riku muttered with a sigh.
Everyone has heard about Raven's obsession with horror movies, so it wasn't surprising that she wanted to go into a haunted house attraction.
"Alright." Everyone else replied in unison.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Inside the haunted house was confusing, because it was also part hall of mirrors. Whenever there wasn't any themed areas, it was a maze of mirrors, which Raven kept running into. They had gone in groups of five, since that's all they were allowed at a time.
"Are you lost?" A voice rang.
Raven had somehow managed to either fall behind or run ahead of her group and was stuck in the maze.
Everywhere she looked, she only hundreds of herself. She could hear the sounds of fake thunder and screams, mixed with real screams.
Her heart started to race, "who's there?" She called trying to stay calm.
Drags appeared beside her, but soon a strange white and gray creature appeared from the mirror.
"What is that?!" She cried out backing into a mirror.
In a single mirror a young man with white hair and black eyes dressed in white and gray appeared. He was only in the glass in front of Raven.
"Who are you?" She breathed amazed to find him in the glass.
She had to touch the cool surface to check that her eyes weren't playing tricks on her.
"The biggest Nobody around." He replied giving a shoo gesture. She backed up again and watched as he stepped out of mirror like it was a door. "I'm like you, only the Guardian of Nobodies."
The feeling of excitement washed over her body. She had never met a nobody, let alone known there was a guardian of them. Now he was right in front of her and actually really handsome.
"I'm Raven." She held out her hand, while one arm clung to her new fox plush.
He smiled some, "I know." He replied tucking his hands into his pocket. "I'm Shiro, but if you had to write it out, it's with an X."
She gave a confused look, as he fogged up and mirror and wrote the word 'Shiro' on the surface before adding 'Xiro' under it.
"See with an 'X'." He explained with half lidded eyes. "Now, how about I show you some real fun."
"Raven!" Her friends were calling for her. Trying to find.
"I can't, my friends." She started but the young man took her hand in his.
It was a perfect fit, like it was meant to be there. Her heart skipped a beat as he pulled her to the small hallway that the workers used to get around.
The calling of her name became more distant while Xiro lead her through the halls until they came to a door marked 'Exit'. The fresh ocean air was much better compared to the stuffy, fogged air of the haunted house.
"Where are you taking me?" She asked unsure of how to react to this.
He gave a sly smile. "You'll see. You'll love it!"
She nodded tightening her grip on his hand, to make sure she wouldn't lose him somehow.
XXXXXXXXX
The music was loud, the whole place was dark even with flashing lights, and everyone was crowded together moving to the music.
Uncertainty filled her chest as she tried to stay close to Xiro. He snagged a couple of drinks from a tray and handed on to her. With how loud the music was, she couldn't make out any words he said to her until his lips were to her ear.
"Summon some Heartless." He ordered with some strange darkness to his voice.
Looking around, she wasn't sure it was possible with how cramped the space was. But in the back of her mind she could hear all the Heartless in the darkness calling to get some hearts. How could she reject their nature? She was the one who told them when to steal hearts and she hasn't let them in a couple of weeks.
"Don't deny them, they are your family aren't they?" Xiro's voice rang.
He was right. Raven couldn't keep the Heartless chained forever. Sooner or later it would back lash onto her. So she did what she did best, called the Heartless to her side to steal the hearts of humans.
Screams of terror filled her ears as everyone in the club realized that monsters were appearing, but it was too cramped for too many of them to get away fast enough. She watched as they stole the hearts and make cries of joy.
Something washed over her, like something had lifted off her shoulders. Soon she threw her hands in the air and sang for the Heartless to keep up their reign of terror. She danced about to the music of her heart and her creatures of darkness that sang their own tunes as they stole the remaining hearts.
Soon darkness washed over the husks of the people and transformed them into different kinds of Nobodies. Xiro joined Raven in her dance when this started to happen.
Now Raven remembered, Heartless took hearts, the bodies turned into nobodies. Without her Xiro was nothing. But she needed to be reminded about who she was on the inside. She wasn't a normal human.
"You are the main Guardian of Darkness!" Xiro exclaimed taking her into his arms. "Without you the Darkness would cave under the Light."
He brushed her braids back.
Then there was an odd pull before her hair fell loose around her shoulders. Her eyes went wide as her hands reached up and touched her hair. Her gaze slide from his face to his hand; in it was a knife that had several strands of hair on it still.
"Forget about your time with those humans, you'll only hurt them." He explained as the world became quiet around them.
"No, I like them." She replied balling her hands up.
"You're nothing like them. You and I are immortal!" He snapped before gesturing around them. "Look at what you do, then I use my nobodies to scare more humans into places for your heartless to prey on!"
She tried to shake her head but he was right. Somehow in a matter of a few days she had let everyone let her forget who she was. She was meant to wreak havoc across the lands.
"Raven!" Vanitas came out of the darkness, a few Unversed with him.
"Unversed." Xiro growled before making all of his nobodies vanish.
"Vanitas?" Raven questioned as everything sunk in.
Xiro took her hands in both of his. "Don't listen to anything he as to say. He's a traitor to our kind."
Brows knitted together as Raven tried to figure out what he meant.
"Shut up!" Vanitas snapped pulling Raven away from Xiro. "She doesn't have to follow the old ways. Time are changing and so can we!"
"What is he talking about, Vanitas?" She looked up at the dark man.
He scowled before looking at her with softer eyes. "I'm the Guardian of Unversed. Only I can't create as many unless feeling great negative emotions. Ventus also has to have some going on because we balance one another out. But after meeting Terra, Aqua and the rest of them life wasn't as bad so we kept it that way." He explained. "The world doesn't need Unversed to survive, it doesn't need a great amount of Heartless and Nobodies either. They can start to dwindle down."
Xiro roared in anger before charging at Vanitas, who shoved Raven out of the way.
She looked at the fight before her as well as feeling the conflict that was going on in her head. Both were right but which path was for her?
"She can't leave the Darkness, it'll kill her!" Xiro growled before punching Vanitas.
"What do you know about her past?" Vanitas snapped blocking a couple of blows.
Raven tried to remember how she became this way. Taken over by the Darkness but nothing came to mind. Her memories were spacy from how much time she spent hiding in the world of Darkness.
"She was on the brink of death when the Darkness transformed her!" Xiro said taking Vanitas' feet out from under him.
Death? That idea felt so far off, like it could never happen. She didn't get how she could have been on the edge of life and death when she was taken in by the power granted by letting darkness into your heart. Nothing was making sense, nothing was fitting together like it should.
Her chest started to hurt along with her head. Black dots started to form in her vision as it became too hard to breathe. Her hands grabbed at her chest and neck as she fought to get air in her lungs but it was a losing battle.
Everything went numb, the world silent as the darkness took over her vision before she dropped off into nothingness.