Just a little comment on Vanitas' behavior in the previous chapter, he's not going to suddenly switch to being all full on nice like Sora. He's going to be more along the lines of a cynical, sarcastic anti-hero. He's just still adjusting to people not treating him like a monster, and he's secretly enjoying the attention. Bit of a short chapter this time, folks..

Episode 4: Stranded:

Radiant Garden – Dining Room:

August 4, 2015

"What do you mean our worlds are gone?" Captain Phoebus asked incredulously. He, his wife Esmerelda, their friend Quasimodo, the trio from Olympus, and a few warriors from the Land of Dragons sat in one of the dining rooms in Radiant Garden's castle. The day after Xehanort's death, the Coalition's communications network lost contact with their worlds. Gummi Ships had been dispatched to find out what was wrong. And only this morning did they finally return. And this time, they came back bearing bad news.

"I mean that they've completely disappeared," Cassim replied calmly. "The ships arrived at the coordinates of The Land of Dragons, Mount Olympus, and La Cite Des Cloches, but found nothing. They scoured the surrounding solar systems for two days looking for any sign of what had happened. I'm afraid your worlds have either been destroyed, or somehow moved to a completely different location beyond the boundaries of Coalition space."

"But that's impossible," Mushu interjected from his perch on Mulan's shoulder. "Our worlds' Keyholes were locked when Sora, Donald, and Goofy sealed that Door to Darkness three years ago. What could possibly have destroyed entire worlds?"

"I do not know," Cassim admitted. "And truthfully the idea terrifies me more than I would like to admit. But rest assured, the best scholars in the Coalition are being put to work scouring the libraries of Radiant Garden, Disney Castle, and the Land of Departure in search of answers, while Gummi Ships will be on constant patrol in the area of space where your worlds used to be in the event that anything changes. Until then, there's not a lot I can do. I'm sorry."

With that, he got up and left the room. Being in charge of the Daybreak Coalition's nascent spy network meant that the former King of Thieves was much busier these days than he'd ever been with the Forty Thieves. Back in the dining room, Phoebus, Esmerelda, and Quasimodo stepped out into the hallway to talk about what to do next while Mulan and Shang returned to the Borough to discuss the situation with the family. Yao, Ling, and Chen Po likewise did the same to talk to their wives. Mushu and Cri Ki slipped out as well before the doors closed, leaving Hercules, Megara, and Phil alone in the dining room.

"Hey," Meg said reassuringly, trying to cheer her husband up. "Come on wonderboy, you can't beat yourself up over things you can't control."

"But all those people back home…" Hercules protested glumly. "My parents… Everyone we knew from home is either dead or defenseless against the Heartless and any other monsters. And I…"

"Save it, kid," Phil interrupted before the demigod could launch into another bout of self-loathing like he'd done after the Hydra incident two years back. "Like the girl said, you can't beat yourself up over this. You gotta stay positive and hope everything will work out. With any luck, we'll be back home before you know it." After a half hour of encouragement, the two of them were finally able to get the message through Herc's incredibly thick skull. Eventually, they decided that however long they were cut off from home, they might as well make the most of it."

Meanwhile, out in the hallway, Phoebus, Esmerelda, and Quasimodo were animatedly discussing what to do if it turned out that they couldn't go back to Paris. Given her dislike of stone walls, Esmerelda wanted to find a more rural place to live. Quasimodo, enjoying his role as the bell ringer of Notre Dame despite Frollo's cruelty, decided that if returning to Paris proved to be impossible, he'd find a job as a bell ringer somewhere. Although they had all left friends and family behind in Paris, they weren't going to sit around moping about their misfortunes. If they were stuck out here, they were going to make the most of it.

While that conversation was being carried on, Mulan, Shang, and their friends and family had gathered in the living room of the large house Fa Zhou had rented in the city's newest district, constructed directly above where the city's old power plant used to be. Upon receiving the news that they were cut off from their homeland, Mulan's parents and grandmother were deeply troubled.

"The emperor, must have anticipated an event such as this," Fa Zhou speculated. "That must be why he insisted that we all travel to this land together, so that if anything prevented us from returning home, we would not be separated from our loved ones." While everyone else agreed with the assessment, they were still concerned over what had happened to their world. Had their home simply been moved somehow, or had some malevolent force, potentially more dangerous than Maleficent and Xehanort combined, destroyed it?

TXW Spoiler-filled explanation time: First off, Earth as we know it is the largest fragment of the original world. As for why you can have multiple Earth-based worlds, some worlds in the KH universe are Tethered, connected to the Earth of whatever time period they're set in by invisible portals, kind of like in Thor: The Dark World. Sora locking Kingdom Hearts with the X-Blade at the end of TXW is causing all the worlds to start drifting back towards each other to recombine into one whole world. Since Tethered worlds are displaced from their time periods, as part of the process, they go back to their own time period before going back to Earth. The rest of the worlds won't fuse until the very end of the Acolytes of Chaos saga.

Up Next: Namine and the Clock Tower trio go shopping for furniture and other stuff for their new house.