Let's get down to business! Sora, the disclaimer please... Sora?

Riku: "He and Kairi are a bit, uh, busy."

Oh... Then, would you mind?

Riku: "Why not? DarthKingdom doesn't own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Square Enix, or the Men in Black reference. Just the plot and O.C.s"

Chapter 6: Reunions and Mission Briefings

Yuffie pushed the door open. Immediately, the hall was filled by the noise of numerous conversations within. Sora looked in on what seemed to be a meeting room.

In the center was a wide, circular table surrounded by chairs. A large,crystal chandelier hung above the table, filling the room with soft, golden light. There was a large window on the opposite side. Deep blue velvet curtains currently covered it. The white walls were adorned with various charts, he saw one that looked like an intergalactic map.

All of this entered Sora's mind before he was tackled to the ground by a small, blue creature shouting, "ALOHA!"

"STITCH!" he shouted in between laughs and licks, trying to shake the tiny thing off. He was soon covered in greenish alien saliva. "Please, please, stop! I missed you too! Alright enough!"

Stitch hopped off and landed on two legs. He bore a huge, toothy grin, laughed crazily, and jumped onto the table. Riku pulled Sora to his feet. Though he regretted it when his hand came away green and sticky.

"You get used to it eventually." Sora muttered.

"Or you have a psychotic episode." Someone muttered darkly.

"Let me help you with that, my boy." Said a white-bearded old wizard sitting at the table. He flicked his wand, and the goo covering Sora vanished. Another flick, and Riku's hand was clean as well.

"Thanks, Merlin." Sora replied.

Their young ninja friend walked in and adressed the assembled people. "Just in case you've been struck blind, deaf, and dumb(er) while I was gone, Sora and the others are here."

"This is Riku." Sora said, he clapped a hand on his friends shoulder "And this gorgeous angel is Kairi" he kissed his now blushing girlfriend on the cheek. Someone giggled, another guy laughed, and somebody else wolf-whistled.

Aside from the newcomers, there were over a dozen people in the room. Leon was sitting near them with a thin, dark-haired woman he didn't know. Aerith was on his other side. Merlin and Cid sat across from them at the table. A large black man with a metal right arm was glaring at Stitch, who was giggling at him from the ceiling. In a corner of the room was Tifa. By one wall, looking slightly out of place (and for good reason) were Hayner, Pence, and Olette from Twilight Town. A young lioness was standing on all fours near them, looking at Sora in awe. The Gullwings: Yuna, Rikku, and Paine were hovering by the chandelier. A holographic representation of Tron was sitting at the table, though he was a little fuzzy looking. Their highly magical friend Genie was floating above them. Captain Jack Sparrow (one of the absolute last people Sora expected to see present) was leaning against the wall. The demigod Hercules smiled at the group from across the room.

Sitting in front of the curtains in two throne-like chairs were King Mickey Mouse, and the Sorceror Master Yen Sid.

"Glad you could make it fellas!" The king said. Though that was all they heard before he was drowned out by everyone's respective greetings (in varying degrees of enthusiasm).

Genie was the first to do so. "Sora, Donald, Goofy...uh, YOU TWO!" Genie vanished in a cloud of purple smoke and reappeared directly behind the five of them. He wrapped them all from behind in a crushing huge and flew around the room with them still in his arms. "Oh I missed you –and am happy to meet you- SO MUCH!" There was another puff of smoke, and they were back in their original positions. Riku and Kairi looked dizzy. "And by the way Sora, good choice!" He whistled.

Leon strode forward and shook their hands, offering his congratulations on their success with the Organization. "I'm glad to see that you've made some progress here." Sora replied.

"You're too kind."

Aerith hugged them. Cid gave Sora a rough pat on the back, and Merlin tipped his pointy hat to them. Tifa waved at them from her corner.

Hercules walked forward and nearly broke their arms with his handshake. "The honorary heroes!" He exclaimed, "It's great to see you."

Jack walked forward in his characteristic manner of acting like he was drunk. It seemed to fool Riku and Kairi, who appeared ready to catch him if he fell. "I don't suppose you're ready to hand me your blade then, eh mate?"

Sora only laughed and said, "Sorry, Captain. You still can't use it."

"Fair enough."

Hayner and his friends walked forward and expressed their relief that their friends were safe. And they introduced themselves to Riku for the first time.

Once most of them had settled down, the king spoke up again. "Now that you've all finished smothering our guests, they've still yet to meet three of us." He turned his head to the woman seated next to Leon, whom Sora was starting to believe was his girlfriend. She stood up and walked forward to meet them.

"Rinoa Heartilly." She said with a smile. She shook hands with all of them. Rinoa seemed like a kind, happy woman, and he couldn't help but wonder how she fell for Leon. "'Leon' has told me a lot about you all!"

"And what exactly did he say?" Donald asked suspiciously. Rinoa only smiled and returned to her seat.

The large man walked over to them. "The name's Barret Wallace, boys, don't you forget it" He told them. Unfortunately, he used his metal right arm to shake Sora's hand. The both of them could here a suspicious crackling noise. Most of the room was tactful enough not to say anything, except for Stitch who immediately burst out laughing.

Barret snarled and pointed his arm at the ceiling. It then transformed into some kind of triple-barreled gun, and spun around. He aimed it at Stitch and shouted at someone. "Just give me two seconds with that ball 'a fur!"

In response, said "ball 'a fur" growled, pulled out one of his laser pistols, and said something along the lines of "Meega natha queesta!"

"Down, boys!" Merlin said. Both of them were immediately knocked to their knees by some invisible force. Stitch flew the whole distance to the floor (about twenty feet), and smushed his face against the floor. "That will be quite enough."

"Um, good to meet you, Barret." Sora said while the man massaged his chin.

"Likewise."

That left only the lion cub on the far side of the room. As Sora looked closer, he guessed that she was still pretty young. Likely no more than three months, but lions grew fast. When he noticed her eyes and smile, a memory suddenly popped into his head.

"I'm counting on you Simba..." Nala said, nuzzling the king's neck. "And so's our baby."

Sora grinned and looked the young lion over again. To everyone's surprise, (and confusion) he bowed. Donald and Goofy soon arrived at the same conclusion as Sora, and bowed as well. The cub's eyes widened a bit, but she seemed to enjoy the treatment.

"It's good to meet you, Your Majesty." Sora said, grinning.

"'Your Majesty'?" He heard Kairi ask Riku.

"Call me Kiara." The lioness said. "And it's great to finally meet you three, my dad talks about you a lot."

"How is Simba these days?" Sora asked. He was starting to see a great deal of the king of Pride Rock in his daughter. They carried the same air of friendliness and mischief.

She rolled her eyes. "He's fine, but he is SO overprotective. But, he didn't even realize that I stowed away with the King until I was already gone! Can you believe that?"

"You WHAT?" Donald and Goofy shouted as one.

"Woah, how'd you pull that off?" Sora asked. Kiara seemed remarkably proud of herself.

"SORA!" Kairi shouted disapprovingly..

"Wha? Right! Right, sorry. I mean, um, How could you!?" Sora quickly ammended.

"Don't worry, the kings already cleared it up." She said, a little defensibly.

"I'm glad you guys got to meet, but could we please get started?" Mickey said from his chair. He gestured to five open seats near himself and Yed Sid that had clearly been saved for them.

They took the seats, Sora and Kairi sat at the King's side holding hands. Riku was on Kairi's other side, conveniantly next to Yuffie. Donald and Goofy were now across from them in between Yen Sid and Tron.

"Now then. Let us begin." The sorceror said. He waved his hand, and the doors shut. The candles of the chandelier flickered out, casting the room into semitotal darkness, which was only countered by the faint glow of Tron's hologram. Sora was rapidly learning that atmosphere was very important to Master Yen Sid.

Suddenly, the previously closed curtains snapped open. All eyes were instantly upon it, and Sora took in a very amazing sight. There appeared to be an entire universe behind that curtain. Millions of stars could be seen there, stretching into an apparently very small infinity.

Something floated out of the space, sending ripples through it as though it were water. The object seemed to be a beach ball sized crystal ball. It floated through the air, lighting up the space around it, and settled onto the center of the table.

Sora vaugely heard Jack voice his own thoughts, "That's interesting."

"Interesting" was a mild way of putting it, but Sora completely agreed.

Yen Sid spoke again. "This new threat of darkness is stronger than anything we've seen before. It undoubtably is controlling massive amounts of Heartless and Nobodies, yet it has yet to fully reveal itself. It is carrying out it's plans behind the scenes."

Sora noticed that the crystal ball was filled with dark smoke. "All of my magic has been able to bring me few answers. That in itself is disturbing, but what I do know is far more so."

"It is a group of strange beings that call themselves the 'Brotherhood of the Dark' . Their apparent leader is called 'Serndask', an entity of enormous power. They are working toward a great goal to steal the heart of all worlds." Yen Sid paused.

"Kingdom Hearts." Sora finished. Yen Sid bowed his head to them. "But, the King and I sealed the Door to Darkness... So, Kingdom Hearts is safe, right?"

"It would seem that way." Yen Sid admitted. "But we still have no idea what the Brotherhood is capable of, and the danger is very real. I take it you remember the artificial Kingdom Hearts Organization XIII created? It was quite powerful, despite the fact that it wasn't the 'true' Kingdom Hearts."

"What do they want with it?" Riku asked.

"That is unknown to me... Likely the power it would afford them." Yen Sid admitted slowly. "But there may be another who knows more. From what I can gather, he was a prisoner of the Brotherhood for a time, and he's recently escaped. He's been attacked frequently by the Heartless since then."

Yen Sid's crystal ball suddenly tripled in size, and it's contents changed. All of them could see a tall man facing several Neoshadow Heartless. His back was to them, but they saw long dark red hair tied into a pony tail. He wore jeans, and a jacket the color of his hair. Sora couldn't believe his eyes when the man's weapons appeared out of thin air.

Two red and silver chakrams.

Roxas suddenly shouted in his mind.

"Axel's alive!?"

As soon as he said it, the Axel in the crystal ball tossed his chakrams into the group of Heartless, reducing most of them to black puddles. He called his weapons back to himself and charged into the rest of them. He spun during his attacks, taking out Heartless with every swing of his circular weapons.

Within five minutes, Axel was standing alone in the area. Now that the Heartless were gone, Sora could see an amazing orange sunlit sky behind him. He could see a town below him that looked very familiar.

Axel looked very worn out. He was panting heavily, and was drenched with sweat. He began to walk away from the battle scene, when suddenly four Berserker Nobodies appeared behind him.

Sora was amazed that he was able to keep fighting.

Axel surrounded his chakrams with flames and tossed them at the hulking Nobodies. One went down, but the others deflected the attack with their claymores. They approached him and swung the weapons as one. Axel escaped the brunt of the attack, but was still thrown backwards off the hill he was on. His Nobody attackers gave chase.

"For those of you who haven't met this man. He is Axel." Yen Sid continued as the fight played out before them. "The betrayer of Organization XIII. He supposedly gave his life so that Sora could continue on his journey."

"I saw it." Sora said. "How did he come back?"

"That is knowledge that only he and the Brotherhood hold. And he may know other things." The image faded just as Axel finished off the last Berserker. He was clutching his side in obvious pain. Sora noticed a thin scar running across his forehead. "I have detected him in Twilight Town."

"What does he want there?" Kairi asked.

"Maybe he's going after the data in the old mansion?" Hayner said from down the table. The boy was a native of Twilight Town, and had aided Sora with his friends. "Sora found a way to that other world from there."

"That's what we think." King Mickey said. The crystal ball was filled with black clouds again. "And Twilight Town is in a bit of danger, too. This darkness you see is streaming off of it."

"Count us in for this one." Hayner said. "We're not going to lose that place, we're not." Pence and Olette nodded, showing their determination. Sora, Riku, and Kairi traded looks. Nobody else realized that Hayner had just repeated Riku from a few hours earlier.

"You will be needing different weapons, then." Yen Sid said. He snapped his fingers, and above them appeared a sword, shield, and staff. All of them had the king's insignia somewhere on them. As they floated down toward their respective weilders, Sora couldn't help but feel that he had seen them before.

"Thanks..." They said in unison, marveling at their new weapons. At the back of his mind, he felt a rush of affection for the three that he was pretty sure belonged to Roxas.

Around them, the candles were re-lighting themselves, and the crystal ball floated back into the space behind the curtains, which shut of their own accord.

The King stood up. "We'll depart for Twilight Town in the morning. Sleep well."

Don't know why I put all those Disney characters in there like that. I'm just asking for trouble later on... Review please!