So, uh… been awhile, huh? Yeah. Anyway, it came to my attention that somehow I completely skipped the Coliseum. I don't know how that happened but here it is. We'll just pretend this is the right order of things. It will be back on track after this one, whenever I get to it.

Yes, I know there probably are a ton of details that are wrong and/or missing. Sorry, I'm doing this from memory and Kh-vids cutscenes.

Thank you for the help, sassy and everyone make sure to answer the question at the end.

--0—0--

"Why do you hate the doctors so much?" Sora asked as they walked down the street they both lived on. His fingers were laced together behind his head and he glanced over at Riku curiously.

Riku shrugged. "I honestly don't know. For as long as I can remember, I've despised going. I really hate going when I'm not sick."

"At least it was a short visit."

"Yep." They turned up the walk and entered Riku's house. The front room was quiet but they could hear Riku's mother in the kitchen. It was one of the two days of the week that both of his parents were home for dinner.

"Is that you, Riku?"

"Yeah, Mom."

The blonde woman stuck her head out of the kitchen. "Dad got held up at work so it's just us for dinner. Hello, Sora."

"Hi."

Riku nodded and set his satchel on the couch. "Didn't Auntie want to get together with you this week?"

His mother angled her head. "Yes, why?"

"Sora and I are really caught up in a video game so if you want to go out with her tonight since Dad won't be here, that would be alright."

She nodded. "That's a really good idea. Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Riku stated easily. He glanced at the coffee table and noted a medium sized envelope on top of the pile of mail. He picked it up, noting his name on it.

A smile suddenly lit his face and he glanced at Sora. Holding it up, he smirked. "Guess what this is?"

Sora cocked his head. "Uh… no idea."

"Not even a guess?"

Frowning, Sora bit his lip. "Mom gets her club newsletters in envelopes that size. Did you join a club?"

Riku snorted. Well, if Sora did not have a clue then he would just let the younger one stew over it for a while. He moved over to the entertainment center and dropped the package on top of it. "How long before dinner, Mom?"

"I just started it," her voice drifted toward them. "So maybe an hour."

Turning back toward Sora, Riku folded his arms before him. "Homework or try to get through the Underworld?"

"Underworld!" Sora darted forward, sliding to his knees before the television. He reached out to turn it on as Riku pulled out the controller. "We can do homework while we're digesting."

"Sure." Riku tossed him the controller. "If you aren't still stuck in this level."

"Hey! I know my way around the Underworld." Sora protested, loading his saved game. "This'll be easy. It's not that much of a maze."

Riku said nothing and dropped on to the sofa. How many times was it going to take for Sora to understand that the game was not the same as the reality of their journey? Oh, well. The younger teen would learn soon enough.

Sora whipped through rescuing Meg from the Heartless and listened to her go on about Hercules before letting himself wander of. "You know, it was really annoying being called Junior Heroes. I mean, after all we did."

"I think it was rather appropriate."

Sora whirled on him with narrowed eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, come on, Sor most of that was blind luck the first time around."

"Well," Sora stopped and pouted. "Maybe a little but we still had to work really hard!"

"Hey, no one said you didn't and in the end, didn't you earn your hero status?" Riku asked pointedly. "That's not a small thing."

"Yeah, I guess." Donald suddenly spoke and the brunet jumped. He looked back at the screen. "Shoot. What did I miss?"

"Demyx just ran by."

"Oh." Sora sent himself after him and ended up quickly locating the black hooded figure. When they did, the Nobody charged them, going straight past them and shouting in a panicked tone 'run, run away' before disappearing into a dark corridor. "Demyx confused the heck out of me. How the heck did he end up in the Organization any way? He's such a… I don't even know."

"He nearly got you on Hollow Bastion," observed Riku. "He may have been a pacifist but once he got going…"

"Yeah, he was really tough to beat." Sora angled his head. "He just seemed too… nice for the Org."

"He wanted a heart just like the rest of them."

The scene cut to Hades and Pete talking. Pete kept laughing at his own jokes to which Riku rolled his eyes. "That guy was such an idiot. I still have no idea why Maleficent kept him around."

Sora turned back and smirked. "Cause he was the only one stupid enough to stick around, duh."

The silvered teen angled his head thoughtfully. "That's… a really good theory. I never thought about it from that angle."

"Meh, I have my moments." Sora shrugged, going back to his game. "You know, Hercules didn't usually kill people so this whole conversation is pointless."

"They just needed a reason for why Hades chose Auron."

"You know," The younger one laughed. "Hades really should have learned after Cloud to not try making really strong fighters his slaves. It doesn't work."

Riku looked over as Hades and Pete walked over to a large green and black swirling vortex. "I want to know where he gets his information on people. Whoever told him Auron was the 'mother of all bad guys' has obviously not been around for very long. Auron may be a bit dark but he never was a bad guy."

Sora snorted. "If they wanted the ultimate bad guy, they should have gotten Sephiroth."

"Sephiroth would never have even contemplated working under anyone." Riku spoke casually. "Maleficent tried and Sephiroth nearly killed her for just asking. Maybe it's the scar…"

"Scar?" Sora repeated.

"Auron has a scar. It kinda makes him look like a villain." Riku then shook his head. "Of course that doesn't work either because Squall has a scar and no one would ever mistake him for a bad guy."

"Leon has a scar, too, and he's really cool."

Riku closed his eyes. "Leon is Squall."

Soa froze for a second. "Oh, yeah. I can't believe I just totally forgot that."

"Goof."

On screen, Hades summoned two fireballs and in a bust of red smoke, Auron appeared. The graying man simply stood and listened as Hades made his proposition. Then he sneered at the God of the Underworld, completely unimpressed by him and practically told the god to bugger off.

Hades flared up red and shouted 'you are fired' before Auron attacked him. At this, Riku's mother poked her head in from the kitchen, phone cradled against her ear. "Did he just quote The Apprentice?"

"Yes, Mom."

The woman snorted, returning to the kitchen. "I swear everyone is just ripping off everyone these days."

Riku sighed. "You know, she saw me playing this the first time and only vaguely noted that the main character looked like you. However, a random reference to one of her reality shows comes up and she's all ears. She's so dense sometimes."

Back on the TV, Sora had reentered the picture and was now fighting Hades. After a few minutes of this, a cut scene again took over. Hades went on a rant about heroes being zeros in the Underworld, to which Riku snorted. "That is the dumbest thing I've heard in the past… fifteen minutes."

"He wasn't this lame in reality." Sora set controller down and worked his fingers as Auron jumped in and advised them to leave. "He flat out told us that only the dead had any strength there. Without the amulet, if we spent too long there we would have slowly died."

The group ran through the large, thick doors of Hades' chamber and Sora and Goofy quickly shut them. "It's funny that those doors were twice as thick as the ones guarding Kingdom Hearts and yet me and Goofy had no trouble closing them."

Riku shifted his position on the couch. "Maybe you just really wanted to close those doors more."

"Well, yeah." Sora sounded as if that was to only answer. "It killed me to leave you behind."

Biting his lip, Riku refused to give in to the suddenly sappy feeling that rose in his chest. He knew how hard that event had been on both of them but they had never spoken to each other about it. He still did not want to and he was fairly certain that Sora was not too keen on it either but these little admissions and slips said volumes.

Hades appeared on their side of the door and Sora took up the controller to begin the long, drawn out fight along the pathway leading from the doors. "I really did forget about the teleporting thing."

"It happens."

They reached a clearing and the group introduced one another. Sora turned out what they were saying and turned on his knees to face Riku. "You know, Auron kinda reminds me of you, Cloud and Leon put together. I bet all of you would get along really well."

Riku frowned. "We would all probably just stand around not talking."

"Exactly!" Sora waved a hand. "But I just know that somehow, you'd all get one another, you know?"

Riku really had no idea where Sora was getting this from but simply nodded. He actually did understand the other three fairly well having played the games they were from. It had not been too hard to relate to any of them either. That did not mean, however, that they would get along if they met.

Suddenly, Hades yelled and Sora whipped back around. "Oh, goodie. Cerberus. I hated fighting that dog. You know, I wonder if I had just thrown it a really big bone…"

Sora on-screen aimed the Keyblade to unlock the dead-end doors they met up with just as the three-headed dog appeared. Auron told him to go but of course he did not. Instead he moved to the man's side and they began fighting.

Riku chuckled. "Or you could have tried playing music for him."

"Oh, yeah!" Sora laughed as he mashed buttons. "Like Fluffy in Harry Potter! That would have been nice if he had a weakness like that."

Cerberus was defeated a few minutes later and Sora, along with Auron ran through the nearly closed entryway. Before shutting it completely, Sora, Donald and Goofy made silly faces at it. The jagged doors then slammed shut.

"Tell me you did not really do that." Riku pleaded even though he already knew the answer.

"It was funny!" Sora protested. "We had to keep the mood light somehow so we did stupid little antics."

Riku closed his eyes and leaned his head back, shaking. "Sometimes I am so glad I stayed away."

"Oh, you love us!" The younger teen grinned. It abruptly fell. "Though Auron wasn't amused by it. You know, he was kinda… I don't know. Sometimes he seemed to find us really annoying and other times I would catch him looking at me like I reminded him of someone."

"You probably did."

"Maybe." On screen, it cut to Meg and Hercules. Meg was trying to convince Hercules to take a day off from fighting. "I never did ask Auron about what he did before he died."

"He probably wouldn't have told you if you had."

"Probably not." Sora agreed, eyes on the screen. "Leon told me a tiny bit about where he came from but Cloud? Nope, not a word. Everything I know about him comes from Aerith, Yuffie and Cid."

That made perfect sense to Riku. Cloud still had a lot of issues to work through. It was the silvered teen's belief that he had started to but when the Heartless took over and Cloud got separated from the others all the progress he had made was undone.

Sora was back on the video game. "I can't believe Hades didn't know what the Keyblade did. He spent how long with Maleficent?"

"She never went into the whole Kingdom Hearts keyblade thing with any of them." Riku explained idly. "All she really told them was that by finding the keyholes to their respective worlds, they could take control of them. The idiots simply followed her blindly from there."

Sora shook his head. "And people wonder how they were all defeated by a fourteen-year-old kid."

They were back at the Coliseum now and Hercules emerged through the door to begin a conversation. Meg hovered in the back ground. "You know, I still don't get exactly how he was manipulating her with the statue thing."

Riku shrugged though the brunet would not see it. "I assume he has part of her soul and uses it as leverage against her."

"But wouldn't that mean she's dead?"

"Technically."

"That would explain a few things." Sora spoke absently, guiding himself out to talk to Phil. The satyr began talking to him as if he where Hercules and the real Sora lightly growled. "Phil really needs to learn to pay more attention to who's around him."

"He also needs to earn to count." The older teen muttered. "He comes off as the classic dumb jock in here."

"Are you boys almost finished in there? Dinner's about ready."

"Yeah, a few more minutes, Mom." Riku called back.

"Darn it," Sora mildly cursed. "I wanted to bust up some stuff."

He skipped ahead and Hercules strolled out onto the main floor of the Coliseum. He told them that the Olympus Stone had been stolen, which needed to be found quickly. Shortly after, Hades appeared and began goading the half-god about Meg being 'lost' in the Underworld.

Riku laughed at the large god flicking Sora in the head to push him away. When Sora glared back, he merely shrugged. "It's funny."

"Whatever." Sora turned back as he volunteered to help Hercules. Pegasus, who had arrived for no apparent reason flew off to find Meg which made no sense what-so-ever. If she was in the Underworld, how would Pegasus flying around help locate her? "How much longer is this?"

"A lot." Riku answered, straightening out. "You've got to locate Meg and fight Demyx. Save it when you get back into the Underworld."

The brunet nodded, proceeding to do just that. He talked to Phil for a minute then went and saved. When finished he tossed the controller down and stood up, stretching. "I'm already bored with this level."

"Yeah, it seems pretty pointless until you get to the point we're at," agreed Riku, also getting to his feet.

"At least we're almost to Demyx." The shorter of the two rolled his shoulders. "I actually kinda like him."

"So do I." Riku chuckled. "Could definitely do without those damned water clones, though."

"At least you didn't have to face them in real life." Sora's blue eyes widened a bit. "Those things hurt."

"I believe it." Riku spoke sincerely. "Let's go eat so you can finish up the level."

--0—0—

After dinner, Riku's mother left to catch a movie with her sister. She only told them to behave and make sure they got their homework finished. Both teens merely nodded in the way all teenagers did when told what to do and she cuffed Riku's shoulder as she walked out.

Sora threw himself before the television. "Dinner was pretty good. Your mom got it right this time, Ku."

"She's been taking lessons." Riku resumed his place on the couch.

Sora turned everything on and loaded his game. "Toss me a pillow."

Riku did so, hurtling it at his friend's spiky head. "You could have grabbed one as you passed the couch."

"I forgot." Sora stated simply as the pillow made contact. He left it were it fell and positioned himself around as he walked himself back through the Underworld.

After several mis-turns and backtracks, Riku snickered at him. "Told you you'd get lost."

"I'm not lost! I just went the wrong way." Sora glowered. After another five minutes, they entered a chamber to reveal a man in a black coat. "See? I found him."

The hood fell back and Demxy, overcoming his second of surprise, tried a few times to get Sora to react to Roxas' name. He gave up in defeat and pulled out a note card.

As he read out his instructions and muttered about being the wrong guy for this, the real Sora shook his head. "I still feel bad for the guy. He was an idiot but he kinda wasn't."

Riku leaned on the sofa arm and watched Sora carefully. "I still think that under different circumstances, the two of you would have made great friends."

"Probably," agreed Sora. Demyx pulled out the Stone, which triggered a boss fight. "You know, even though I really had no idea who any of these people were and I was really angry about what they were doing, I don't know, part of me, like recognized them. Looking back, I think one of the reasons I was so… indifferent to them was because of that."

Aqua eyes narrowed with consideration. "You mean like you were trying to deny you felt any sympathy for them?"

"Kinda. I know I was a lot more aggressive toward the Nobodies than I ever was to the Heartless. I guess it was because they were consciously choosing to do all of this." Sora half-shrugged. The him on screen took a nasty hit from a water clone and began flashing red. Just as he went to heal himself, the fight ended.

Demxy rubbed at his shoulder and made a few pained noises. He looked and almost pleadingly asked for Roxas to return. Then he disappeared, leaving the stone behind. Sora on the floor chuckled. "He really wasn't good with mission stuff on his own. He works better paired."

Riku angled his head frowning. He knew that was not Sora's opinion because there was no way he could have known something like that. The silvered one said nothing, however, deciding to not call attention to the slip.

Sora on screen used the Olympus Stone so that he, Goofy and Donald could function normally in the Underworld and again headed off through the tunnels. It was another half-hour before he found his way to the chamber where Meg was embossed in stone. As he walked in, the brunet glanced over his should. "Okay, so I got a little lost. It wasn't this twisty in the real world."

Riku chuckled. "I told you."

The lock on the stone was undone and the stone disappeared revealing a large hole. The group jumped down and confronted Hades. He thanked them for using the keyblade and left leaving Pete to fight them. Sora engaged in battle and muttered. "This had to be one of the most pointless things yet."

"Yep," agreed Riku. "All of that just so Hades could have his own tournaments. "See why I'm glad I stayed in the shadows?"

"Good plan." The younger one ran down a group of hooked Heartless. "You still should have told me you were okay. I don't care if you didn't want to be found."

Sighing, Riku picked at the fabric of the couch. "I should have but I hoped all the clues I was leaving were enough."

"Meh, I figured it out."

"Goofy figured it out," corrected Riku with a light grin.

"Eh, details." In the game, Sora unbound Meg and as Pete got ready to rush them, Hercules appeared out of nowhere and joined in the fighting. Pegasus flew in to take Meg away and the Trinity followed leaving Hercules with Pete.

Sora dropped the controller and pointed. "Why are we leaving? We didn't do that! I don't just leave people behind like that."

"Oh, just wait." Riku informed him. "It gets stupider."

Sora in the game caught up to where Meg and Pegasus landed, Meg expressing her concern that Hercules won't be able to fight on his own. Sora then volunteers to go help and Donald orders the flying horse to take her away. They then go back the way they came.

"What. The. Heck?"

Riku laughed. "I told you. Total waste of time and completely pointless."

The group re-met up with Hercules and Pete and after some more fighting, Pete decides to run off. Before there is any time to say anything, the cavern rumbles and the heroes book it out of there. A cut scene of Hades came up, in which he seems extremely happy that the Underworld is rattling and states that Hercules is going down.

Topside, they enter the arena and the Hyrda, which was not nearly as dead as the half-god thought, was running amuck. Hercules drops to his knees, getting all emo about what was failure he is. The others try to snap him out of it but it does no good.

"He totally sounds like Cloud here." Riku noted with a snort. "I'm not fit to help any one. They make one freakin' mistake and the whole world collapses."

"Oh, I know. He totally shut down and now I have to take care of it." On the screen, Phil, Meg, and Pegasus took up fighting positions behind him. "And the horse thinks it's a ninja or something."

Sora began attacking the Hydra, hacking away. After a minute, he frowned. "Why is nothing happening?"

"Go over there." Riku instructed, pointing to a spot on the screen. "Phil will start yelling at you."

Sora did as told and sure enough, Phil began shouting, "Get on the Hydra's back!"

"Why the heck do I want to do that?"

"He's gonna throw pots at you and you're supposed to aim them up at the monster's heads." Riku explained. "Then jump down and begin hacking again."

"What?"

"Just do it."

Sora did as instructed, spending almost five minutes just trying to get on the Hydra's back. When he finally did, the pot came hurtling at him and he batted it over. Then he leapt down and began attacking heads again. When Phil began shouting again, the brunet grumbled. "I'm kinda busy trying to kill this thing."

"You have to do it this way, Sora."

"Why?" The boy was heading up the back even as he whined the question. "When I did this for real, all I did was beat the thing up for awhile and when it started acting funny I hopped on Pegasus, flew around and chopped off its heads."

"Oh you fly on Pegasus next."

"Stupid game," grumbled Sora. He muttered darkly as he went through the pattern until prompted to use Pegasus. "Video games are not supposed to be harder than the real thing."

"Sure they are. People wouldn't play them if they were easy."

"Shut up."

After three failed attempts, Sora finally defeated the Hydra and the real teen threw the controller up and fell back on his pillow. "That was a freakin' pain!"

"Yep. I hated this level." Riku stood. "Want some ice cream?"

"Yeah." On screen, Hercules continued his emo rant. Everyone assured him he just needed a break and Meg announced that she would take care of him. Sora snickered at that. "Meg just, like, oozed sex."

Riku paused and stared at Sora. "I can't believe you just said that."

"Well she does! I mean, look at her!" The blue-eyed boy gestured to the screen. "And that voice? Come on, Riku. You have to have noticed."

Riku shrugged non-committaly, again turning for the kitchen. As he opened the freezer, he heard Sora move around. He rather hoped Sora would decide to stop playing for a while, hence the ice cream offer. Much as he liked this game, he was getting bored.

"Why the heck do I give Goofy that chessy grin when the Stone glows to open the gate?" Sora asked loudly. "Obviously it was going to be the object that did it! There wasn't anything else that could be!"

The older teen smiled to himself, dishing out bowls of cookies and cream for both of them. It was rather entertaining watching Sora play himself and try to figure out why things were different. At least for now it was. He was a little concerned about later in the game but he would worry about that later.

He put the carton away and carried the bowls out to the living room where Sora was already zapping space Heartless to get to the next world. He placed Sora's bowl on the coffee table. "Do you know where we're going next?"

"Uh, I think Port Royal." Sora finished clearing the path and his blue eyes lit up when he saw he was correct. "Oh, sweetness! I love this place!"

"Your ice cream is going to melt." Riku sighed. Maybe he should just start on his homework….

"What? Oh, yeah." Sora scratched his head. "Well, we'll land and as soon as I can I'll save. The Coliseum was kinda long and boring. I wanna do something else for a bit."

Riku silently thanked the higher powers.

The group in TV walked through stone archways, looking over the new world. Screams from the town erupted and they ran to investigate. On the way, they came across a save point and Sora shut off the game once it was saved.

Setting the controller down, he spun around on his butt and eagerly took his bowl of ice cream. As he began scarfing it down, he asked. "So what do you want to do now? And don't say homework."

"We do need to get that done as some point."

"I know but not now." Sora groaned. On his next mouthful, he suddenly perked up. "I kinda wanna go outside and do something."

"We can see if Kairi wants to hang out for a bit."

Sora nodded vigorously. "Okay."

--0—0—0—

All right, here's the question: What should happen next, continue on to Port Royal or have a Final Fantasy break?