I wrote this in a bit of a hurry… All errors/mistakes are mine.

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"Oh, man today sucked!" Sora complained, throwing his backpack on to the floor. "Three pop quizzes! Three! On the same day. What's with that?"

"It's not like they coordinate with each other, Sora." Riku set his bag on the coffee table, tossing his keys onto the entertainment center with exact precision. "Stop trying to turn it into a conspiracy."

"It just… sucks." The brunette whined. He plopped himself on the floor before the TV, turning it on and opening the side compartment to switch on the game console.

Riku frowned at him. "Can't you wait five minutes?"

"Why?"

The silvered one shook his head. It was not worth arguing about. Let the boy play for an hour or so and then they could do their homework. He settled himself on the sofa and watched on as Sora reloaded his game and he, Donald, Goofy, 'Ping' and Mushu met up with the military base camp.

"Man, that was hard work." Sora commented as he ran himself around for the Imperial Army. "I am never joining the military."

"They'd probably court-martial you before you finished basic training." Riku snickered. "You can't follow orders for nothing."

"I can if they make sense! They just usually don't."

"I'm still trying to figure out why you felt in necessary to pick a fight with those guys in line."

"Because they were being jerks!" Sora announced as if it should have been obvious. "They totally asked for it!"

"But you don't pick fights."

Sora tilted his head. He kept playing as he talked. "Well, yeah. I didn't think of that. Actually, now that I am thinking about it, I did pick a lot of fights while I was going around. Even Donald had to tell me to back down a few times."

He stopped as the game went into a cut scene of a burned out village. "You know, that was the first time I ever saw that kind of damage done by an actual person. It really hit me then that people could really be that terrible."

"Yeah, we can be." Riku muttered.

"Oh, don't get all emo on me again." Sora chastised. "If you're doing this now, I don't want to see you closer to the end."

Riku kept quiet.

"You know, when I first got into the mountains and in the snow, I thought it was the coolest thing. Now, it's kind of a pain." The younger teen commented as he engaged the dozens of Heartless ShanYu sent toward them. "Oh and then Mulan had to start that freakin' avalanche."

"It was a brilliant idea," Riku noted. "Just poorly executed."

Sora shrugged a bit. "Mushu really does not know how to keep his mouth shut."

"A lot of your friends are like that." They continued watching the scene. "You are so lucky he didn't execute you."

"Oh, the captain wouldn't have."

"Oh, yes he would have. I was there for one of his disciplinary hearings." Riku stated firmly. "Four men were killed for abandoning their posts."

Sora whirled on him. "And you just watched?"

"What was I supposed to do, Sora? It wasn't my concern."

Blue eyes stared at him in complete disbelief. "I can't believe you didn't do anything."

They fell silent as the cut scene finished. Sora was obviously upset and Riku really had no way to explain his actions that Sora would accept. They were simply too different when it came to these kinds of things.

ShanYu returned and more Heartless appeared. Sora made short work of them and continued on to find Shang and warn him of the coming threat. The captain, of course, did not believe them until he saw the man for himself. When he ordered his soldiers to protect the emperor, several of them mysteriously turned into Heartless themselves.

This snapped Sora out of his funk. "What? It doesn't happen like that! You don't just whoosh into a Heartless, one has to take your heart."

"Like getting bitten by a zombie." Riku added flatly.

"Exactly!" Sora abruptly turned. "Wait, what?"

"It's like those Resident Evil movies and the T-virus."

"Oh, yeah." Sora nodded. "Pretty much."

The Heartless were defeated and Mushu started prancing around. Riku made a face. "Hunny bun? That is the worst pun I have ever heard."

The younger one was not paying any attention. He was listening to the emperor list everything Mulan had done wrong. Then he stated the one thing she did right. "You know, for an emperor, he was pretty cool. And he let her into his guard even though she was a girl."

"I liked him. He had a dry sense of humor I appreciated."

Sora turned. "For just how long did you talk to him?"

"I was there for two days." The older clarified. "I really wasn't to crazy about Shang. We didn't get on too well."

"That doesn't surprise me a whole lot."

"Did you really ask her for an autograph?" Riku snickered.

"Huh?" The brunette twisted his lower lip. "Oh, well, she was famous now and no one I'd come across was like, world famous."

Riku made a light noise in the back of his throat. Then his green eyes flicked back to the screen where Sora was chasing after Mushu. "And here you go, over-reacting again."

"Well, he did lie to us."

"True." Riku supposed. Mulan's sword started glowing and left her hand. "I still don't quite understand how the whole object turning into a key to the gateways works. Or how come you always conveniently met up with the right people for it."

"Destiny." Sora said simply and his cgi self opened the gate, locking it in place. "I'm not too sure how I knew what to do when it happened."

"The Keyblade." Riku answered as simply as Sora had made his statement. Then he laughed. "You are such a goof."

"What?"

"You two play nice." Silver hair fell forward as Riku stood up. He ruffled Sora's spikes as he passed him for the kitchen. "The boy who hasn't so much as kissed a girl making suggestive comments."

Sora blushed. He fished around for a retort but did not find one. Instead he only shouted, "Get me a soda."

Riku laughed from the kitchen as Sora resumed his game, looking to see where he was off to next. He whipped through the gate battle and grinned a little upon landing at Beast's Castle. Riku had come back and tossed a bottle in the brunette's lap.

He glanced at the screen a brief moment, his mouth tightening for a second. He then sat back on the sofa, removing his philosophy text from his bag. Settling himself, he opened the book to the chapter he was supposed to read.

"Hey, aren't you going to watch?"

"I am."

"No, you're doing homework." Sora complained. "What's your problem with Beast's Castle? You weren't there too, were you?"

"If I had been, Beast would have certainly killed me." Riku softly answered, skimming over a page. "He is one of the last people I'd expect to let go off what I did."

Sora frowned. "You mean kidnapping Belle."

"Yep. Play your game."

The brunette shook his head, turning back to the screen. "Belle doesn't hold it against you."

Riku allowed himself a small grin. "Most of the princesses don't. That does not, however, mean that those around them are going to be as understanding."

Sora began fighting the Heartless that surrounded him in the study. He supposed that was true but he did not like it. After a while, Beast stalked in and simply started shoving things out of his way, including Sora, Donald, and Goofy. He then picked up the cased rose in the corner and stalked back out.

"I guess with how he was acting then you're right." Sora reluctantly agreed. "But I bet now he'd forgive you."

Riku made no reply.

The trinity wandered around a bit, ending up outside Belle's room. Donald tried to bust down the door but Belle opened it causing him to fly down onto his face. Sora snickered at it, muttering idiot.

"Who's the one who jumped Mulan?"

"Hey, at least I learned from it!" Sora protested. As Belle explained Beast's strange behavior and the need to rescue her friends, Sora tilted his head. "You know, she's the prettiest of the princesses. And she was really nice."

Riku flicked his green eyes up. "Humm."

"You don't think she's pretty?"

"I never really looked at any of them like that." Riku shrugged. "They were a job, nothing more."

"How can you do that?" Sora queried as he sent himself to the dungeon. "How do you just objectify a living being?"

The older teen sighed. "It's hard to explain, Sora and even if I did, I doubt you'd get it. I just told myself this was what I had to do and I did it."

Sora wanted to say something but they had triggered the dungeon door fight and he had to concentrate on that. Once finished, the group entered the room of inanimate objects. "Ya know, after everything I had seen, those guys still completely freaked me out."

"I would imagine so." Riku smirked. "And there goes Donald again."

"You know, he used to give me such a hard time about meddling and all that but he was at least as bad as me! I mean, yeah, I tended to get caught up in other people's business but he was just…"

"Obnoxiously curious and temperamental?"

"Yeah." Sora watched the screen. Beast was being encouraged to feed his anger. "I can't believe they really thought they could turn Beast into a Heartless by using Belle against him. And he fell for it! He believed this robed guy who suddenly appeared over the people he loved."

Riku looked up. "It isn't all that different from what happened to me."

Sora stopped hit buttons and almost died before regaining his senses. He finished the fight with Beast and as the cutscene started he turned. "I never thought of it that way."

"Well now you have. We were both being manipulated." The silvered one watched the screen. "Xaldin used Beast's weakness against him just like Maleficent did with me.

"And Goofy is a bit too optimistic here." Riku noted as Goofy concluded that Beast threw everyone in the dungeon for their own good. "He did not lock them up to protect them from himself."

Sora frowned. "Why do you say that?"

"Because if he was as lost as he claims, he would have seen them as enemies. He wouldn't care what happened to them so long as they were out of the way and no longer a threat."

"Then why didn't he just kill them?" Sora challenged.

"The same reason I didn't kill you." Riku answered easily. "I wanted you out of the way, not dead."

Sora stared at him as he returned to his book. He was beginning to really see why Riku held on to as much guilt as he did. He was learning more through this video game than he had in the entire time they had been back on the Islands.

"You gonna play?"

"Oh, right." The younger one turned back to the game. He wandered back to find Belle, eventually ending up at the Ballroom. Belle ran through it and an enormous Heartless appeared, consuming the room. He frantically hit buttons and died almost immediately. "Thank goodness I saved before coming here."

"It took me three four tries to beat this one." Riku noted. "The last round, it all just kinda fell into place and it was easy."

Sora took two more tries before defeating the boss. "That's one less than you!"

"You did it real life."

"True but it's really different in the game." Sora commented, taking a drink from his bottle. "Some of this actually seems harder in here than it was when I really did it. I'm kinda dreading the Organization."

"It definitely gets harder as the game goes on." Riku grinned at the cutscene. "It still gets me that Goofy is the smarter one out of all of you."

"What?"

"Goofy was the brains of your little operation." Riku smirked. "Which doesn't say much for your group."

"Hey!" Sora whapped his best friend's leg with his capped bottle. "You calling me stupid?"

"Nope, just a little slow on the uptake."

Sora pouted and turned back to the TV in a huff. Lumier was explaining the rose thing and how to become human again, Beast had to learn to love and then be loved in return. Goofy and Mrs. Potts made their optimistic replied to Sora's query of whether Beast would make it.

Riku chuckled as he stated along with Sora on the screen. "I hope you're right. Way to be encouraging, Sora."

Sora sputtered. "Yeah, well… it seemed really unlikely then."

"Uh huh." Riku gestured at the screen. "Now this one I really don't get. You weren't even in the same room as the rose and somehow, you just knew it was the key."

"I didn't know." The spiky-haired youth countered. "The Keyblade did."

The group said their farewells and Sora again looked at the screen oddly. "Okay, I can see asked them to let me know if they heard anything about the king and all that but why the heck would I mention you, too? They'd have no idea who you were."

"I want to know how they were supposed to let you know." Riku added. "It's not like they knew where you would be or any of you had communication devises."

Sora scrunched his face. "Yeah, that too."

The world map came up. "So where to next?"

"You're expected to return to Hollow Bastion every so often, by the way." Riku advised. As he said this, Chip and Dale noted that they were being recalled to that very place. "And sometimes his makes you go."

"This must be when Merlin needed us to help Pooh bear."

Riku snickered.

"Hey! Don't make fun of Pooh!" Sora entered Merlin's house and talked to the old wizard, who indeed showed him a story book. Then Merlin disappeared and Sora decided to visit the 100 Acre Woods. He told the others to cover for him.

"Exactly what were they covering for?"

"In case anyone came looking for me." Sora spoke simply as he ran himself into the book and landed on its pages.

"No one knew you were there."

"That's beside the point." Sora waved a dismissive hand. He went over to Pooh's house and talked to the bear for a minute. They were about to exercise, which Riku again snickered at, when everything froze and Sora was ripped from the scene.

He landed on the wood floor with a thud and the book shut. Donald called from outside and Sora ran out to help them fight some Heartless. A few of the Shadows stole the book and they ran after them.

"Save the next chance you get."

Sora nodded, finishing off the fight and reclaiming the book. "How long has it been?"

"It's almost six."

"Really? Wow, this game eats up time." Him on the screen returned into the book where Pooh no longer remembered Sora or any of his friends.

"The Final Fantasy games are worse." Riku noted. "I can't believe Tidus is into seven, that's just weird. If he ever found out about any of this being real, he'd have a coronary."

Merlin returned and they discussed the missing pages before Sora hit the save point in the corner of the room. He set the controller down reluctantly and climbed to his feet. "Yeah, they would totally freak. I wish we could tell them, though. I'd like to be able to talk about all of this with other people."

Riku nodded understandingly.

"All right," Sora retrieved his backpack. "Thankfully, I don't have too much homework today."

"I've got a ton." Riku frowned. "And I'm going to have to use the computer for a lot of it."

"Oh, so up to your room then?"

"It's probably a good idea."

Sora hefted his bag and went to the game console, switching it off. "Let's go then."