Hearts of Avengers

by lyokoMARVELanime

Instead of Traverse Town, Sora lands in New York after Destiny Islands fell and just moments before The Breakout happens. One superhero team-up later, and the Keyblade Hero is now a member of the Avengers. It's the story of Kingdom Hearts with a marvel of a new spin. Just see how Sora and the Avengers will affect both of their adventures, now.

7. The Lost Empire

AN: Wow, let me just say that I did not mean to take this long to update this story again, but things got really busy in my life IRL, and I had to update a bunch of other stories that were long overdue for an update (some more than others), but now at last, we're back again to adventures featuring heroes of the Keyblade, and in particular, the newest chapter of...Hearts of Avengers!

[audience applause]

Yeah, you know it's getting real, and that's without the fact that this is going to be the first world that explains how Sora's going to be getting to other worlds in this story, among other things as well, too. Now I know that you're all excited and eager to see what happens, but before we get into things, I'd like to take a moment to answer a few reviews, or at least whichever ones that I can without giving away any spoilers or really anything else like that.

Wasp: Um, I don't know how to tell you this, but I don't think you have too many recent reviews that you can really answer right now without giving away a spoiler.

AN: Maybe not that many, but there are still some questions that I can answer. First off, to those of you who guessed that the first world of this story will be from Atlantis the Lost Empire, I applaud you all, because you are correct!

[audience applause]

With that said, Namor will not be in this Atlantis. He's still got his own deep sea pad on the Avengers' world, the alternate name of which shall be revealed here today.

Moving right along, in response to the person who asked for a sign on who Ven might end up with, romantically, "Dragon Rider 66", I can already say that no, she will not be appearing in any of Sora's dreams. Mainly because she actually hasn't been born yet, for lack of a better term. Here's another little hint: when she first came into being, it was in the same place that Ventus was hidden away in.

Sora: Well that's not a dead give-away or anything.

AN: Well I think that depends on how well everyone knows their Kingdom Hearts lore, and on how many folks can decipher the clues. Oh, and btw, I wouldn't expect anyone to call Yuffie out on being a character from a video game. Just because Disney exists in this universe as it's usual mega-franchise, doesn't mean that Final Fantasy does too, you know. But there will be something that seems similar to it all the same. I'm thinking of calling it the Last Illusion series in this story.

Riku: Eh, I think it might need some work.

AN: Well, it is still just one idea. Oh, and just a quick word to "Twisted Pixl", while I'm not opposed to doing a KH story that doesn't follow the Sora&Kairi pairing, it will most likely be a long time before I do end up writing such a story. It will most likely be even more of an AU than this one is, or the Keyblades Unleashed Series for that matter, but to be quite honest, they will still end up together by the end of the series that said story would be a part of, mainly because, come on, those two are the ultimate OTP for Kingdom Hearts, and I honestly can't really see them ending up with anyone else but each other without their being a solid reasoning behind it. (Said list of reasonings do not include Sora turning out to be gay though. Not that I have a problem with gay people, but I do have a problem with folks trying to make characters that way when they are most obviously not!)

Next up is to the guest reviewer, "Johnathen", who pitched an idea for another world which included He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-Without-a-Hint-of-Disgust.

Everyone other than AN: Huh?

AN: Deadpool.

Everyone other than AN: Oh.

Deadpool: Hey! I resent that! [suddenly gets punched out of the room by a Darkside Heartless]

AN: Do I look like I care? Anyway, back to what I was saying before, at the moment, aside from Star Wars and Final Fantasy, I'm not including any worlds that are not from Disney in this story, and more importantly, Deadpool is most definitely not going to show up in this story, because let's be honest, what kind of Kingdom Hearts story would have a guy like Deadpool in it?

Iron Man: Probably one that was rated M, or one that just him showing up in his video game if nothing else.

AN:...Fair enough. I'll give you that. Next up is to the guest "HenryBarreto", who asked about Donald and Goofy's progress in their search for Sora. Well, you'll find out the answer to that soon enough, my friend.

Our next review answer goes out to yet another guest reviewer by the name of "DarthRevan-B312", who actually posed quite the interesting theory.

Hawkeye: Oh yeah, wasn't that the guy who asked if Nick Fury was going to turn out to be Mace Windu in this story or something?

AN: Yep, that's the one. Sorry to say that no, Fury will not be Mace Windu here. As cool as that idea would be, Fury's going to remain as simply Fury, and Mace Windu would really just be his doppelganger from another world, if nothing else. Besides, when would he really have time to teach Sora some stuff about the Keyblade when he's busy running all of SHIELD and later on, fighting a secret war with the Skrulls? Again, it is a great idea, but it's not one that I'm going to be using here, as tempting as it may be.

Sora: Hey, I don't know if you noticed this last guest review from a "Guest" on 8/21/18, but it looks like he was proposing an idea for a story that features Xion, and asking for her opinion on it.

AN: Well honestly, while I have heard of the series, I don't know enough about it to really do any kind of story with it in any shape or form, let alone one that adds in any specific characters. What're your thoughts, Xion?

Xion: As tempting as it would be for me to be a central character all on my own in one of your stories, crossover or not, I don't think you should go for it. I mean, if you don't know that much about the series, it would be a bad idea for you to try and write anything that happens in that series, wouldn't it?

AN: Pretty much, yeah. But you can't deny that you do like the idea of avoiding your canon fate in anyway possible, can you?

Xion: Um, duh! Why wouldn't I want to avoid that if at all possible? I mean, come on, I died and yet no one seems to remember me at all, even when I do show up before them.

Roxas: I wouldn't say we don't remember at all. I mean, Riku seemed to have a little bit of recognition when he saw you in Dream Drop Distance, and Sora's shedding tears when he met you in that same game must mean that a part of him, probably the part of him that's me, does remember you a little.

AN: Okay, we get it. What happened to Xion in canon sucked, and I do in fact like to change that fate whenever I get a chance. Let's move on now, please.

Xion&Roxas: Yeah, all right.

AN: So, now that we've covered everything here, let's not waste another minute and get right into the action! Avengers, to the chapter!...

I do not own anything from either the Kingdom Hearts or MARVEL franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

---

Chapter VII

As far as most of the Avengers were concerned, the only real downside to adding Yuffie to the team was hearing how much she complained about having to be enrolled at Midtown. Yes, Sora did complain quite a bit, but Yuffie had him beat both in how much and how loudly. She did not even stop until after she had met Sora's friends from said school and formed a close friendship with both Anya and Gwen. It may have been a little strange that she was not making friends with any of her fellow Juniors, but seeing as Sora was the only one she actually knew on her first day, Yuffie could not help it if she formed friendships with people that were outside of said grade level. Aside from that, the ninja tended to spend a lot of time with Janet, normally just chatting things up and being their excited, preppy selves. It might have had something to do with the fact that they were the only two girls in the group, or it could have been their similar personalities, but no one could deny that a fast friendship had formed between them in a matter of days if not less time. None of them had heard anything about the press trying to give Yuffie a fancy codename yet like they had with Sora, but the Keyblade Samurai was confident that it was going to happen sooner or later.

Speaking of Sora, he did have a few more complaints about the two newest additions than everyone else, but most of that normally pertained to how his training sessions with them usually some him walking away with a few bruises, or with him feeling like every part of his body hurt too much to properly move. T'Challa and Yuffie were not overly harsh in their lessons, but given that they were well-trained, experienced fighters, they did have a hard time holding back in sparring matches. The things that Sora learned from them were helpful though, because it allowed him to not only refine his swordsmanship so that he was not just relying on the fighting style that he developed with Riku while they were growing up, but also to help him learn how to better fight without the Keyblade. Sora was not too worried about the idea of losing Kingdom Key or something, but after his encounter with Night Hunter, he knew that there was a chance of someone taking said Keyblade from him somehow, so it could not hurt to know a few extra fighting skills. Add in the fact that Tony had told him the next part of his partial armor was going to have a few offensive capabilities that should help him channel his magic with or without the Keyblade, and Sora was sure that he was going to be ready for anything the next time he crossed paths with Night Hunter.

When he told T'Challa and Yuffie that, they immediately shot that idea down before beating his next lesson into him. "No one is ever truly ready for anything or everything," T'Challa had said after landing a particularly hard spin kick into Sora's left side. "You can only be prepared for as much as possible in the coming moments."

Sora still did not understand what that meant. How was saying that you were prepared for anything that different from saying that you were ready for it? Yuffie had tried to explain it in some elaborate way, but it only gave Sora a big headache. In the end, she simplified it by saying that if you claimed to be ready for anything then you would lose all motivation to try and get better, which would leave you vulnerable and weak against the next big opponent, or words to that effect at least. That Sora could understand, and part of him had to wonder if that was why he always kept losing to Riku in their sparring matches back on the islands. He shook it off as just him reading a little too much into it though. After all, those were just friendly matches between friends, not bitter duals between mortal enemies.

It was actually after another day of training with the two that saw Sora entering the mansion's lounge from the secret elevator in the fireplace, and while T'Challa had gone to provide assistance in locating the Breakout escapees, Yuffie had followed him up to the lounge and happily plopped down on the couch next to him once he had collapsed in exhaustion. "You know, you're actually getting better a lot more quickly than anyone I've ever seen when they start doing this type of thing," the ninja complimented. "I guess the whole being self-taught thing has something to do with it though, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Sora groaned in pain, not really having it in him to say much more in reply. "Doesn't make it any less painful though."

Yuffie could only shrug in reply to that before she started her latest round of critiquing. "Well, you know what they say: no pain, no gain. Though you could stand to watch your footing a little better. If you had, you wouldn't have been open to that sweep kick that I scored on you when you thought you had me pinned down. And you're still leaving your left side open a little more than you should. That's how T'Challa was able to get at you so quickly. All he had to do was keep focusing on your left and then strike the minute that he had a chance, which was quite a bit."

"I know, I know," Sora groaned, having heard that particular bit of advice several times now. You would think that would serve as a sign that he should be trying a little harder to fix that, and Sora was trying to, but it was not really all that easy for him to adapt his fighting style to correct something like that. "And let's not forget my magic control…"

"I'm not, but the point of these lessons is to help you improve your regular fighting abilities, not the magic powers that make you all wizardly," Yuffie pointed out in a half-teasing tone of voice.

Sora had to give her a small smile in good humor for that one, but he still did not sit up from his current position on the sofa. "Feels like a rotten way to start the weekend."

"Are you kidding? This is a great way to start it," Yuffie cheered. "Nothing can get your blood pumping like a good bit of sparring! And better yet, it's two whole days where we don't have to go to that horrible torture chamber."

"Hey, I may not like it either, but school's not that bad, Yuffie," Sora protested. He did actually like going to Midtown, if for no other reason than to see his friends and to just relax and not be an Avenger for a little while. It gave him a sense of normalcy that he had not had since coming here, despite the fact that everyone at Midtown now knew for a fact that he was one of the Avengers. Of course, most people did not really make that big of a deal about it after the first week of his enrollment, so Sora had to figure that the hype had died down a bit.

"Says you," Yuffie childishly countered with a huff.

Sora was about to point out something in defense of their school life, namely regarding their friends Anya and Miles, but before he could, his Keyblade suddenly materialized into his hand out of nowhere, surprising both wielder and ninja. "What the," Sora gasped before he just turned to trying to dismiss the magic blade, only to be met with a very surprising twist. "Hey, what gives? Go away already! I'm not in a fight, there's no Heartless around, and I definitely don't need to do anything that I normally call you out for Kingdom Key."

"Sora, I know for a fact that it isn't this bad, so quit kidding around," Yuffie stated, thinking that he was just trying to play a prank on her.

"I'm not! It's really not going away," Sora insisted as he tried waving the Keyblade around. He would have thrown it or even just put it down somewhere, but for some reason, he could not bring himself to release his grasp on the handle. It was almost like something had glued his fingers to the Keyblade or something. A moment later, the tip of the Keyblade suddenly started to glow a little, and as said light began to swirl around the tip in a sphere, it soon steadily grew brighter and brighter, until reaching a point where Sora and Yuffie both had to shield their eyes lest they risk getting blinded. Eventually, they heard a soft ring of some kind, and before they knew it, they felt as though something had pulled them up off of the sofa and into the air at great speeds, while the light surrounding them simply flashed brightly once more and then vanished with them along with it.

Just seconds after the light had died down, Hank walked into the room, having heard their voices from the lounge, and said, "Hey, if you two are done with your training for the day, I'd be happy to help with whatever homework you might…" Ant-Man stopped short when he saw that the room was completely empty with not a soul in sight. His brow furrowed immediately after this, since he was so sure that he had heard the two youngest Avengers in here, and he called out, "Sora? Yuffie? …Hmm. That's odd. I could've sworn they were in here. JARVIS, can you tell me where they are?"

"Apologies Doctor Pym. Master Hart and Miss Kisaragi are not currently in the mansion," the AI butler reported.

"Guess they went out to meet up with their friends or something," Hank muttered to himself. He then thanked JARVIS for his help and then turned to go back to his lab. He still had some experiments to run, and with any luck, he'd be able to get to a good stopping point before the two got back from wherever they went. Needless to say, Hank was one of those people who thought it was better to get homework done right away so that one could better enjoy the time off that the weekend provided.

---

When the light from the Keyblade had finally died down, Sora could feel that it had returned to normal, and immediately dismissed the magical weapon with a sigh. "Well, that was weird," the kid commented. "Maybe I should have another talk with Thor and see if he knows anything about why the Keyblade would start doing something like that."

"Uh…I think that might be a little hard at the moment," Yuffie told him, and Sora was immediately thrown for a loop at how nervous she sounded. Turning to Yuffie, Sora was about to ask why she thought that, but he quickly discovered that reason on his own.

The familiar, welcoming walls of Avengers Mansion had all disappeared, and in their place, they found a great deal of darkness, rock walls, and faint sounds of water slowly dripping down into a nearby lake or puddle. After their eyes had adjusted to the dark a little better, they could also see that there looked to be some broken machinery a few feet away from them, and from what they could tell, it was not anything like what they typically saw at the mansion, or anywhere else in New York. It all looked several years old, like something that belonged in the era of when steam power was one of the more efficient methods of powering larger devices. The cave walls also extended upwards for a great distance, right to the point where they could not even see where the ceiling was. Any other details were lost to Sora at the moment, because he was more concerned with how they had gotten here and wherever here was.

"Yuffie…What just happened," Sora finally asked.

"You tell me! You're the one who zapped us here," Yuffie quickly cried out in reply, sounding a little more panicked than Sora was used to hearing her.

"I didn't do anything! In case you hadn't noticed, the Keyblade went crazy with a sudden appearance and light show, and then we found ourselves here," Sora snapped in retort. After he said that, he had to pause and think for a minute, barely noticing how Yuffie was on the verge of pacing back and forth in worry, before he finally came up with an idea that might have been a little crazy to some people, but made a bit of sense in his mind. "Do you think that…the Keyblade might have transported us to another world?"

That got Yuffie's attention, or at least enough of it to get her to calm down and think a little more clearly. "Maybe," Yuffie admitted in a thoughtful tone. "I mean, there are all kinds of legends talking about Keyblade wielders traveling to other worlds to keep peace between them, but I always figured that they had some kind of crazy ship or something. Then again, considering that they all have access to incredible magic, I guess it wouldn't be too far-fetched to think that the Keyblade would allow one to reach other worlds. But why would your Keyblade suddenly zap us to another world now of all times, and how are we gonna get back again?"

"I really hope you're not asking me, because I didn't even know I could teleport to other worlds like this with the Keyblade until now," Sora pointed out. Still, he re-summoned his Keyblade, thinking that it could not be too hard to get back, and held it out in front of him. "Back to Avengers Mansion!" The two waited for a few minutes, only for nothing to happen. Not even a little twinkle of light appeared on the Keyblade aside from how the metal shimmered in the little amount of light that the cave possessed. "Uh…Go to New York," Sora tried again, but there was still no reaction. "Come on, Kingdom Key. Work with me here, and take us back!"

"Sora, if it were that easy, I think you would've been able to get to other worlds a long time ago before now. Maybe you need to picture nothing else but where you want to go in your mind," Yuffie offered.

Sora was not sure how that would make a difference, but it was not like they had anything to lose right now. With that said, he took a deep breath to help make himself as calm as possible, held the Keyblade in front of him, and made sure that the only thing on his mind was the mansion. He allowed himself to think of the people who lived there as well, just in case it had a chance of helping to direct the teleportation, but no matter how hard he focused on all of that, there was still no reaction at all. After a few more different ideas and attempts fell flat, Sora was ready to give up, and prepared to dismiss the Keyblade when they suddenly heard voices coming from nearby. Both Keyblade wielder and ninja froze a little when the voices suddenly mixed with what sounded like a fight, and a minute later, they started to scramble away when something suddenly got blasted towards them.

Only Yuffie was able to get clear in time, but Sora ended up at the bottom of a sudden dog-pile when two strangely shaped figures dropped down on top of him. They both figured that it was not too much of a stretch to think that these new arrivals were the people they heard talking earlier, but what they did not expect was for the two individuals to suddenly look towards the Keyblade still in Sora's hand, and excitedly cheer as one, "The Key!"

"Urgh…Hey, could you two get off me, please," Sora moaned, alerting the new arrivals to their presence.

Said individuals quickly scrambled off of him, while the taller of the two said, "Sorry about that, but we got ambushed by those Heartless guys. I guess that last spell you used was a bit more powerful than you thought, Donald."

"Ah what do you know, ya big palooka," the other one retorted in an odd, garbled kind of voice that Yuffie and Sora almost did not understand.

"Hmm. What do I know," the tall one mused aloud, apparently not aware that he had been asked a rhetorical question. "Well…I know that a bunch of stars have been going out lately, that the king left to go and find a way to stop it all by himself, that he asked us to go and find the key, and that we needed to do what we could to help the worlds from disappearing. So I guess I know a lot of stuff."

"Wait, a king asked you to…Are you guys the ones that King Mickey had sent to find me and the Keyblade," Sora asked immediately after he heard that.

"Yup, that's us," the taller of the two said, and they immediately stepped forward a little, allowing Sora and Yuffie to get a better look at them. Not that it was by that much, seeing as the cave was still so dark.

"Hang on a minute. I'm not spending another minute talking to shadows," Yuffie informed them, and she then reached into the bag on her belt to produce a small glow stick, which she immediately cracked to life, granting a little more illumination to their surroundings. The minute the ninja had, both she and Sora turned to face their two new acquaintances, and quickly recognized both of them. That did not mean that they did not let them introduce themselves, though.

"Wow, thanks for that, Miss. Anyways, my name's Goofy, and this here's one of my best friends, Donald Duck," Goofy informed them, and true to their nature, they both looked almost exactly like they did in all of their appearances in various Disney cartoons and other media, save for their attire.

While Donald retained his usual sailor-like attire, it was much more elaborate and contained several different zippers and pockets that were no doubt loaded with supplies necessary for traveling on a long adventure. Goofy on the other hand, sported an outfit that was almost entirely different from his usual get-up, save for the way it was styled. He still had his iconic white gloves, his pants still appeared to be rather baggy, his shoes appeared to be long and floppy, and his hat was the same shape as always, but he also sported a green sweater underneath a black vest with extra pockets, while his pants and hat were both a light tan color. In addition to that, he also had a pair of goggles strapped around the brim of his hat for some odd reason, and his shoes appeared to have steel-tipped toes. In short, they looked like they were both set for a grand adventure that would go across many different worlds if necessary.

"So who're you two," Donald asked.

Before either of the two Avengers could reply, they heard someone groaning from nearby, and they looked to see several bodies slowly moving in the dark, like they were just waking up or had suffered from a hard fall. Realizing that there might be some people in need of their help, they put all other formalities on hold for the moment, and raced over to provide whatever assistance that they could, with Donald conjuring a quick light spell that would illuminate their surroundings a little better than Yuffie's glow stick. Working together made digging the people out a little easier, but there was still a great of work involved. If it were not for a good deal of Donald's magic spells, they probably would have been at it a lot longer. Plus they were soon receiving help from some of the people that they helped as well, so that was a bonus. Once enough people were freed though, someone was quick to turn on a headlight from a destroyed vehicle, and made any further use of Donald's light spell as merely an added bonus. All the same, he still extinguished the light from his staff, saying that he needed to keep his reserves of magic energy up in case he needed to use any spells for a battle later on.

With their rescue work done, someone from the strange group quickly came over to speak with the four, and from his stance and large build, they all quickly assumed that he had to be the leader. "Thank you for your assistance in helping my people out from the wreckage of what's left of our camp," the tall man with graying hair stated. He then looked over the four for a minute, studying them with an analytical eye before he finally said, "Though if you don't my asking, just who are you all? Are you…Atlanteans?"

Sora, Yuffie, Donald, and Goofy all exchanged confused looks with one another, not entirely understanding how he could have come to that conclusion, before the Keybearer finally started to give an answer. "No, we're actually from…"

"Very far away! We're adventurers searching for our friends and something very important," Donald interrupted.

The gray haired man just looked at Donald for a minute, along with anyone in his group that was close by, before they finally asked, "What?"

"He said that we're adventurers from very far away, and we came here to find our friends and the key," Goofy repeated, changing the last bit of Donald's sentence, knowing that they were asking due to being unable to understand all of what his friend said.

"Goofy," Donald snapped.

"Oops!"

"What key," the gray haired man asked.

"I think he means my Keyblade," Sora explained, summoning the weapon for all to see.

The gray haired man stared in awe at the weapon, mostly due to the fact that Sora had just made it appear out of thin air, while Donald smacked his forehead in tired disbelief with a sigh, until the leader shook off his stupor and asked, "Are you sure you're not Atlanteans, because I've never seen anything like that before."

"We're not. Like Donald said, we're from very far away, and we got a little…turned around in our travels," Yuffie explained.

"'A little turned around,' she says," a young girl that looked only a little older than Yuffie remarked in playful sarcasm. "That's probably putting it a little mildly considering what it took for us to get here."

"Well either way, we'd be happy to provide you with whatever assistance we can," the leader said. "My name is Commander Lyle Tiberius Rourke. I'm leading this band of explorers from the surface world on a mission to find the lost city of Atlantis, which sank beneath the sea ten thousand years ago. The young woman over there is Audrey Ramirez, our chief engineer." He then moved on to indicate the rest of his crew, or at least the most notable members that were in the area at that moment. "That's our demolitions expert, Vinny Santorini, our medical chief Doctor Joshua Sweet, our cook, Jebidiah 'Cookie' Farnsworth, and…" He paused for a moment when he came around to a stout man that looked like he had not bathed in a very long time and was now digging around while studying samples of the dirt with an ecstatic smile before he finally finished, "That's Mole."

"What does he do," Goofy asked, watching as Mole continued to study dirt samples.

"Well, he mostly does that, and just about all of our digging," Rourke replied.

"Nice to meet you all. I'm Sora, and this is Yuffie, Donald, and Goofy," the Keyblade wielder replied. "So why are you looking for this Atlantis anyway?"

"Let's just say it's something of some old, unfinished business. We were part of a team that discovered and brought back the journal that would be the key to finding the city and retrieving something called the Heart of Atlantis so we could bring back to the surface, but our original Atlantean expert, sadly, passed away before we could press on with an expedition to find the city that had been sunk beneath the sea so many centuries ago. Thankfully, his grandson, Milo Thatch holds the same interest as his grandfather, and has so far proved to be a very suitable replacement," Rourke explained. With introductions and explanations done, he turned to his crew and started asking the obvious questions. "How do things look, Audrey?"

"Not as bad as it could've been. We totaled rigs two and seven, but the digger still looks like it'll still run. Lucky for us we landed in something soft," the young woman replied with a sad sounding sigh after looking over one of the vehicles with a flashlight.

"This is ash. We are standing in the base of a dormant volcano," Mole finally reported to them with a grin that was a little less excited than before.

With that said, Rourke finally grabbed a flare pistol so that he could help them figure out how high the ceiling extended, and fired a single shot above them. "It just keeps going," Rourke noted.

"Maybe that's our ticket out of here," the mustached man with a bowl cut that Rourke identified as Vinny shrugged. Only a second later, they heard a faint boom as the flare finally hit the roof of the cave. "Or maybe not."

"The magma has solidified in the bowels of the volcano, effectively blocking the exit," Mole explained.

"Hold on. Back up," the tall, bald Native American doctor named Sweet suddenly said. "Are you saying this whole volcano can blow at any time?"

"No, no, no, no! That would take an explosive force of great magnitude," Mole scoffed with a wave of his hand.

At the sound of a spring, everyone turned to see Vinny working on a clock that was tapped to some dynamite, and they all leveled him with a look. When he noticed this, Vinny immediately paused in his work, turned a little sheepish, and said, "Maybe I should do this later, huh?"

"Ya think," Donald asked, sarcastically.

"And maybe you should try to stay calm while we're in here, Donald. After all, your temper can be pretty explosive," Goofy joked with a chuckle.

"I'll show you an explosive temper," Donald snapped in retort before he started chasing after his friend in a furious rage, while Goofy just scrambled to get away.

"More like you'll prove his point," Yuffie whispered to Sora with an amused smile, earning a barely repressed chuckle from the boy in response.

While he was mildly entertained by the impromptu show, Rourke was more focused on the situation that his crew and their strange new friends were caught in the middle of, and it showed with how he was studying the roof of the dormant volcano. "If we could blow the top off of that thing, we'd have a straight shot to the surface," the commander theorized, before glancing off to the side. "Mister Thatch, what do you think?" When he only received silence as his answer, he quickly became a little more concerned. "Mister Thatch? Thatch?"

"What's the matter," Donald asked.

"We must've lost Milo some time during the fall," Audrey explained as she started turning flashlight at their surroundings in an attempt to locate their friend. The others were soon following her example, only to have no luck in locating the person in question.

"Don't worry. We'll go and find him. You just worry about getting together whatever else you need for getting out of this place," Yuffie promised. A minute later, she tossed a smoke bomb at the ground, making Sora, Donald, and Goofy cough up a storm from said smoke, while the others lost all sight of her, and when the smoke cleared, they all saw that Yuffie had disappeared completely.

"Where did she…" Sweet started to ask, only for Sora to interrupt before he could finish.

"Yeah, she does that a lot, especially when she's in a hurry or something. It gets a little annoying after a while," Sora sighed, having lost count of the number of times that Yuffie had done that once school had let out for the day. He was honestly a little surprised no one at Midtown had gotten on Yuffie for that stunt, and that she had not yet set off any fire alarms or anything doing it. He put it aside for now though, and stated, "She is right though. We'll find your friend, Milo, so you can worry about getting out of here."

"All right. If you're sure about that," Rourke shrugged, not seeming to really care too much one way or the other. "He'll be a skinny fellow with large, round glasses."

"Skinny guy with round glasses. Got it," Sora repeated with a nod, and he then grabbed Donald and Goofy, ending their little run-around game so that they could go after Yuffie and track down the missing explorer, never once noticing how Rourke was staring after them with a suspicious, critical eye.

---

"Okay, so maybe I should've waited for them to tell me what the guy looks like before I pulled a smoke-bomb exit," Yuffie sheepishly admitted to herself barely more than a few minutes into her hunt for the missing explorer. She would have gone back and asked them, but that would have been a little embarrassing for her, and she only had so many smoke bombs on her person. She did intend to save as many of them as possible for when she actually did need them. Besides, from what she could tell, those people were the only ones down here, and from the sound of things, they had fallen from somewhere really high up. How hard could it be to find one guy who was likely recovering from any injuries sustained in a fall?

Thankfully, it was going to get a little easier, because a few seconds later, Sora, Donald, and Goofy arrived with an explanation on what Milo looked like, and they were soon setting out to search again. As they were looking Sora took the chance to finally ask Donald about what the duck had did earlier. "Why'd you stop me from telling those guys we were from another world?"

"Because while we can't tell anyone about that while we're in another world," Donald explained as simply as possible.

"Yep. Doing otherwise is against the rules, just like the fact that we can't interfere with things that happen in other worlds either, or we'd be muddling," Goofy added on.

"Meddling," Donald corrected.

"Yeah, that," Goofy nodded in reply. "It's all part of how we need to protect the world border."

"Order," Donald corrected once again, this time with a small sigh.

Sora did remember Fury mentioning something like that to him when he first arrived on Earth, but he did not think it was that big of a deal, especially since Thor already knew about all of that and the rest of the Avengers knew about it now, too. He would have brought that up, but he figured that it could wait for the moment, because there was something more important that was on his mind right now. "So have you two been here this whole time, because I was told that you should've been on Earth a while back," Sora questioned.

"Earth," Donald and Goofy both questioned with confused looks. Eventually, Goofy seemed to realize what Sora meant and said, "Oh, you must mean Midgard, otherwise known as Marvin…Marble…What was the rest of that other name again?"

"Marvel-topia," Donald finished for his friend.

"Yeah, that's it," Goofy mentioned before he went on to answer Sora's question. "Well the truth is, we were heading there, but unfortunately, we had a small problem with the ship and all of our data that mapped out where all the worlds are was deleted, which might've been my fault."

"It was your fault," Donald insisted. "When are you going to learn to tie your shoes and not trip over your own, two big feet?"

"But…I don't have any shoelaces. Do I," Goofy asked as he looked down at his shoes, as if to check and be sure of that.

"Anyways, we've been going from world to world ever since destroying the Heartless and finding backup map data that the king had hidden away on some of the worlds that he's visited before. Once we find enough map pieces, we would've been able to chart a course to Marvel-topia without any problems, but we didn't expect you to find us before we ever got there," Donald finished for Goofy, while his friend continued looking for any signs of shoelaces on his shoes.

"So why wasn't the backup on the ship," Yuffie asked. Donald and Goofy both just shrugged in reply, honestly not knowing why that was, and while it was exasperating, Yuffie figured it was better just to not question them on it. "Well, now that you've found him, what's your plan?"

"To get Sora to come with us and help us find the king of course by going to other worlds on our vessel," Goofy explained, obviously not seeing any problem with the idea. Sora had to disappoint him though.

"But I can't. I've got to find a way back to Earth…I mean, Midgard, or Marvel-topia, or whatever you want to call it. The Heartless are a huge problem there, and that's without the fact that I haven't found its Keyhole yet. Plus, there's also the fact that Yuffie and I are in the middle of helping our friends and teammates track down a huge number of escaped supervillains," Sora explained.

"Wait, you're on a team that's fighting supervillains," Donald asked, clearly seeing that as a violation of not interfering in the affairs of another world.

"Hey, I had literally just appeared there after getting the Keyblade a few seconds before that. I didn't know everything that was involved with the thing," Sora explained.

"He still doesn't, for that matter. Otherwise his magic would probably be a lot better by now," Yuffie added on, taking a chance to tease Sora a little bit.

Apparently Sora did not find said teasing too funny, because he quickly leveled her with a flat look, which was soon turning a little heated after he heard what Donald said next. "That doesn't matter! The king needs us, and so do the rest of all the worlds in existence. You can't just ignore that responsibility for the sake of one single world."

"I'm not ignoring it, but I made a promise to help the Avengers save their world, and they're helping me try to find my best friends. You can't expect me to just forget about that, or Riku and Kairi for that matter," Sora argued angrily.

"Maybe we should just table all of this for now, seeing as we've still got a missing person to find," Yuffie offered, opting to play peacemaker when she realized how heated and tense this was starting to get.

Sora and Donald just glared at each other for a few more minutes before they finally turned away from one another and huffed, "Fine!"

Yuffie and Gooffy both cast worried looks after their two friends, but the reasons for their concerns was almost wildly different. In Yuffie's case, she was concerned that not only were they off to a poor start with the friends that King Mickey had sent to help Sora, but that said friends might actually find a way to get Sora to leave with them, and like the rest of the Avengers, Yuffie had grown rather attached to the young boy. Besides that, they did still need Sora's help, be it for stopping the supervillains, or for any of their own purposes or those of Midgard's. Either way, she and the rest of the Avengers would be extremely sad to see him go if he did leave with these two. While Goofy was thinking the same thing about his and Donald's start with Sora, he was more worried about the chances of Sora not coming with them. King Mickey's orders had been to stick with Sora and the Keyblade no matter what, but they would not be able to go and look for Mickey if they were always staying on just one world the whole time, so how could they keep looking for both him and whatever the king was looking for and let Sora stay on Marvel-topia with his new friends. Sure, letting him do so was probably violating the rules about not meddling in the affairs of other worlds, but in Goofy's opinion, said rule tended to be rather flexible at times, at least from his own experiences of traveling to other worlds with his friends. He just wished he knew what to do here, or that Mickey was here right now since he would likely know what to do in this instance. After all, Mickey always seemed to know the answers to a problem.

They were eventually distracted from any other worries when Yuffie spotted something moving through the shadows rather quickly. She could not quite tell what it was, but it definitely did not look like Heartless or animals. When they did not come near her or the rest of the group, Yuffie was willing to write it off as nothing, until she spotted the very man they were looking for chasing after them, shouting for them to wait. She quickly brought this to the other three's attention, and they were all soon chasing after Milo and whoever it was he was chasing, not quite knowing where they were heading exactly aside from the fact that it was likely further away from the rest of the explorer team. Sora was tempted to call out to Milo and let him know that they were there, but one look from Yuffie was all he needed to realize why that was not a good idea right now. If those people that Milo was chasing were not friendly, they would likely end up with even more trouble than they already had, and that was the last thing they needed right now, so they settled for continuing to silently chase after Milo.

The chase did not stay silent for long, as they soon felt the ground beneath them shake before they saw a massive drill rumbling past them and tunneling its way out of the cavern in the same direction that Milo was heading. Looking over the massive machine, they figured that it had to be the digger that they heard Audrey talking about earlier, but they were not entirely sure if the person driving knew that Milo was a few feet ahead of them, so they quickly redoubled their pace. It was easy for Yuffie to do so, having had to move faster than others on numerous occasions before, but Donald and Goofy had a harder time keeping up, and Sora did not have enough room to effectively fly his Keyblade Glider through the place. That did not stop the three though, because they were quickening their pace as much as they could, and did not slow down for anything. Eventually, they started to catch a glimpse of light, and saw Milo standing a few feet away from the mouth of a cave exit. When they passed through, they barely even registered the drill making the exit a lot bigger, because, like Milo and the rest of the explorers who had soon joined them, they were struck speechless at the amazing sight before them.

There, rising high above all of their heads, was a city that rested atop a massive island of water that cascaded down to somewhere below them, and from what they could see, there was not anything supporting the water beneath the city. Even more exciting was how the city glimmered brightly and shone with light, despite the fact that it was so far below ground, and underwater, if what Rourke had said was anything to go by, almost like natural daylight was shining through from the surface, despite the fact that there was no clear source of light as far as the eye could see. Sure, they could not really see too much of the city from where they were, but they could still see enough of it to know that it was both very old and very impressive even from this distance. There was no telling how it could look up close, but for the moment, they were all happy to just look on from where they were.

"Whoa," Sora and Yuffie both breathed in awe.

"Great mother of Jefferson Davis," Cookie exclaimed.

"It's beautiful," Audrey half whispered.

After another moment or two, Donald's smile because a little more subdued as he commented, "I wish Uncle Scrooge and the boys were here to see this. They would love it."

"Yep, they sure would, and I'll bet Maxie would like it too," Goofy nodded in agreement.

With all of this being said, Sweet felt it only right that they give praise to the one who lead them here, and gave the young linguist/cartographer of their band a pat on the back as he said, "Milo, I gotta hand it to you. You really came through." A moment later, they all heard an odd sound from behind them, and they quickly spun around just in time to see some strange people in odd, tribal-like clothing and large masks that covered nearly their entire bodies, save for their arms and legs jumping down towards them, and pointing long, hooked spears at them. "Well I take that back," Sweet immediately stated as the strange hunters slowly approached them, while nearly everyone else dropped into a ready position just in case they were attacked by the strangers.

"Holy cats, who're these guys," Rourke breathed in question.

"They've gotta be Atlanteans," Milo excitedly exclaimed.

"Is that even possible," Yuffie questioned. Sure, she had heard of some strange things, but considering what they had heard about Atlantis, she did not really see how anyone could still be living there.

"You'd be surprised by what is or isn't possible," Donald informed the ninja, his mind already going back to the numerous adventures both he and his nephews had shared with his rich uncle.

A minute later, the supposed Atlanteans ended up not being the most shocking thing that they had seen though, because materializing from right behind the hunters before attacking, were several, shadowy creatures with beady, glowing eyes, some of which even having armor like that of a knight's that four individuals of the group knew quite well. "Any explanations for that, Mister Thatch," Rourke asked.

"Uh…not really," Milo admitted, but thankfully, Sora's group did have a simple explanation to answer Rourke's question.

"Heartless," Sora, Yuffie, Donald, and Goofy all shouted, and a minute later, everyone watched as the four summoned their respective weapons into their hands.

"Leave these guys to us! You all get to cover, and don't let the Heartless so much as touch you," Sora shouted as he slashed through a couple of Shadows right off the bat, while Yuffie tossed her large shuriken through a few Soldiers, Goofy bashed one or two with his shield, and Donald batted a few away with his staff before calling down a blast of lightning.

No one argued with the Keybearer, as both the explorers and the strange hunters quickly took cover wherever they could while watching the incredible, though somewhat terrifying spectacle before them. While Sora had the easiest time with destroying Heartless, Yuffie was proving to be no slouch in that department either, as she was easily making quick work of the dark monsters, be it with a few swings or throws of her shuriken, both the regular variety and her own giant one, or through some flashy display of martial arts that she had learned over the years. It probably should not have been too surprising though; Yuffie had admitted that her home was overrun by the Heartless, and it made sense that she would know quite a few different ways to fight against and destroy them without the need of a Keyblade, but it was still impressive to anyone who really knew just how dangerous said creatures were. She probably would be doing even better too, if she was not so busy watching how Sora fought against them and taking any chance she could to critique him.

"Keep an eye on your surroundings, Sora! Those things are able to come from literally any direction," Yuffie shouted when she saw a Shadow nearly catch the kid off guard after it popped up from the ground behind him. "And watch your footing! That last Soldier could've easily tripped you up. And don't forget to…"

"Guard my left! I know! How about you just focus on the actual fight, and a little less on me," Sora finally shouted when he had finally had enough. Ironically, he ended up leaving his left side open when he did shout this at Yuffie, and a Soldier managed to land a solid kick to that side moments later, knocking him off his feet.

Any follow-up attacks against Sora were quickly averted thanks to a timely rescue from Donald, intercepting the next blow with his staff, and the duck let out a loud warble as he unleashed a flurry of fire, ice, and lightning spells left and right, decimating any Heartless that dared tried to get too close to Sora. The Keybearer immediately gave Donald a nod of thanks, before he had to push him out of the way of a fire blast that came from a Heartless he had not seen before. This one looking like a small wizard or witch, with the conical hat and everything, and when Donald turned some of his spells on it, the magic seemed to either bounce right off or just simply power the little wizard up somehow. The most notable being when Donald tried hitting it with a lightning blast, and the Heartless just became encased in a sphere of lightning while it began raining down some of its own lightning bolts in retaliation, several of which ended up striking Donald on his tail.

"Hey, what's going on," Donald snapped after he got zapped one last time.

"Wizards are magic-proof! You can't so much as hurt them with a spell. It has to be a physical attack," Yuffie explained before she tossed her large shuriken at the Wizard to prove her point. Said point was well-proven when the large throwing star ended up striking true and disintegrated the Wizard right before everyone's eyes, and when Sora spotted another one materialize behind Yuffie, he immediately sprang forward and slashed through it with his Keyblade, earning the same results.

Goofy was the next to follow that lead, and from what Sora and Yuffie could see, despite how he was usually depicted in most of the Disney cartoons, he was actually a very capable fighter. Sure, he did not quite possess the same level of finesse, but the way Goofy fought against the Heartless almost reminded the two Avengers of Captain America's fighting style in some small way. Then again, maybe that had something to do with the fact that they both used a shield in their respective fighting styles. Even so, it was clear that Goofy tended to lean towards a more defensive fighting style than an offensive one, given how he tended prioritize shielding others and counterattack over actually going after the bad guys, but considering how well it was working for him, no one was complaining. Either way, the Heartless were quickly cleared out with little trouble, and none of the four were even a little out of breath afterwards.

"Not bad," Yuffie praised the two cartoon characters.

"Likewise," Donald nodded in reply, being unable to find any way to say that she and Sora did not know what they were doing in fighting the Heartless. He may not be too fond of the idea that they would rather stay on Marvel-topia than help him and Goofy find King Mickey, but he was not going to let that keep him from giving credit where it was due.

"So…That happened," was all that Sweet could say, reminding the four that there were still others in the area, and like that, all attention was turned onto the strangely dressed individuals that had appeared just seconds before the Heartless.

"So these guys are on our side, right," Sora questioned, keeping his Keyblade ready just in case he was guessing wrong.

No one answered the Keybearer right away, though the supposed Atlanteans did seem to be staring at Sora rather intently for a few minutes before one of them finally spoke up. The only problem was that none of them really knew what the heck she was saying, or at least most of them did not. Milo did not seem to have that problem, and slowly took it upon himself to reply, speaking the same odd language as the woman. After hearing Milo speak, the girl removed the large mask hiding most of her from view, and revealed a young, very attractive looking woman beneath it with long white hair, blue eyes, and dressed in simple, tribal-like clothing. The most notable thing that Yuffie and Sora could see about her clothing was the glowing crystal that she wore around her neck as a necklace, as they could somehow feel an odd power coming off of it. Donald and Goofy must have felt the same thing, because they seemed to be staring at the necklace rather intently. Either that or they were just staring at the girl wearing it, which was understandable given that she was quite pretty.

The exchange between Milo and the mystery woman continued on for a moment, with the woman holding a questioning gaze on Milo the entire time, while he slowly worked his way into speaking her language more and more easily, almost as though it were his own. It may have been a bit halting, and maybe a little broken from someone who spoke the language naturally, but it was clearly enough to impress the girl, if her expression and posture's slow change indicated as the conversation went on. By the end of it, she was smiling rather brightly, and actually allowed a little French to slip in, much to their surprise, and Mole's excitement as he stepped up to whisper something to her. Sora and Yuffie were not sure what the little man had said, but apparently, it was not something to the woman's liking, because she immediately socked him in the face a minute later.

"Ooh! I like her," Sweet applauded happily, while the rest of his group just smiled in satisfaction.

"Hm, 'Bout time someone hit him. I'm just sorry it wasn't me," Audrey admitted with a grin, proving what Sora and the other three suspected about the explorers' opinion of Mole, if not all the time, than certainly a good deal of it.

Just a moment afterwards, the rest of the hunters were all removing their masks, revealing themselves to be men and women that were similar in appearance to their leader, including the fact that they all wore the same crystals around their necks, and were granting the four off-worlders and their explorer acquaintances with a variety of welcoming greeting, all in different languages, surprising everyone who was not an Atlantean. "Okay, how do they know so many languages," Yuffie asked, once she was certain she heard someone speak Japanese.

"Their language must be based on a route dialect. It's just like the Tower of Babel," Milo theorized.

"Well maybe English is in there somewhere," Rourke finished for him before moving to stand at the forefront of the group, though pushing Milo aside a little when he did, much to the latter's annoyance. "We are explorers from the surface world. We come in peace."

Sora's group then found the Atlanteans' attention on them, indicating that they somehow realized that they were not part of Rourke's group, and the spiky-haired teen then said, "And we're just a group of adventurers who got a little turned around in our own travels. We come in peace too, by the way."

"Welcome to the city of Atlantis," the lead woman smiled in reply and with a bit of pride. She then grabbed both Milo and Sora by their arms and said, "Come. You must speak with my father now."

No one was going to argue with her, and while Rourke ordered some of his other men to go back to the crash site and salvage whatever they could, the rest of the group all followed after Milo, Sora, and their impromptu guide into Atlantis. It was at this point that Milo finally turned to Sora and asked, "So…who are you guys anyway? I don't remember seeing any of you on the sub when we set out on this expedition."

"It's…kind of a long story," Sora shrugged once he managed to get his arm free again and just follow along at a casual pace.

---

By the time Milo had been brought up to speed on the abbreviated, edited version of the four off-worlders' story, the group had all arrived just outside the palace. Of course, the woman only allowed Milo, Rourke, and Sora's group to enter with her and from the looks that the guards were giving them, not everyone in Atlantis was as welcoming to outsiders as she was. This might have been a point that the woman was discussing with the king, because the conversation that they were sharing in Atlantean did not really seem too agreeable. Not that they could really tell what was being said, but it was clear from their tones and the expression on the king's face it was more of an argument than a conversation, and one that they must have had a few times before now, considering that they both sounded rather tired as they went further into the matter. The group of outsiders just wished that they knew what the two were actually saying, or at least most of them did, considering that Milo seemed to have caught a good majority of it.

"Uh…Did ya get any of that," Goofy finally whispered to Donald when the conversation between the two ended.

"No," Donald simply replied, almost rolling his eyes as if to show a reminder that he did not speak Atlantean.

After that point, Rourke took it upon himself to try and explain his team's reasons for being in Atlantis, but clearly, the king was not buying it as anything more than a farce to hide a less noble intention. He even went so far as to dispute Rourke's claim of his team being people of science by pointing out the fact that they carried weapons, despite the fact that the commander was quick to reason that they were merely for removing certain obstacles. Although with the way that he had paused when he said that, Yuffie and Sora could not help but join the king in his suspicions, even if only a little. Then again, the king was a little out of line when he demanded that they leave and return to their people immediately, as if he did not think that they might not be able to leave right away, or were even in any condition to leave safely. Thankfully, Rourke was able to convince the king to let them at least stay for one night so that they could rest, resupply, and be ready to travel by the following morning. Sure, the king granted the request begrudgingly, but it was still obviously a win in Rourke's eyes, and it certainly seemed like a reasonable one to the others as well.

One thing that Sora's group could not help but note was that the king was eyeing them for most of the latter half of the meeting, or at least ever since his conversation with the girl had ended. It was almost as though he were more suspicious of them than he was of Rourke, though from the odd glint in his eyes, Yuffie had a hunch that there was something else behind his suspicions about the four of them. There was just something in the way that the girl had rapidly spoken to her father at the end of their conversation in Atlantean that made the ninja think that she had mentioned something to him about their group that seemed almost excited or insistent, while it left the king mildly baffled, although unnoticeably so to most, yet even more cautious than before. Sora had that same hunch as well, and would likely have called someone out on that were it not for the warnings he had already received about mentioning the existence of other worlds to those who were unfamiliar with them in any small way. They probably would have had to leave it a complete mystery too, but that did not be the case, as they soon discovered when the king called for them to wait before they left with Milo and Rourke.

"You four; stay a moment," the king requested/commanded, indicating Sora's group when he did. Milo and Rourke both shot a questioning gaze to the four, who could all only shrug in reply before they parted ways and the doors closed behind both the linguist and the commander, leaving them with only the girl who guided them into the city and the king. Of course, the girl did not stay for long, because after another conversation in Atlantean, the young woman left as well, leaving only the king and the four off-worlders in the room, staring each other down in silence for a few moments. "You are all clearly not part of that other man's group, so I have to wonder why you are here," the king finally stated.

Sora got the feeling that the king was baiting them with that line of questioning, but for what, he did not know. A simple exchange of glances with Yuffie and the others told him that they had the same feeling and question, so in the end, he figured he might as well give the best answer he could. "We were just passing through on a little adventure of our own," Sora explained. "It was not really part of the plan to come here, but we got a little turned around and stumbled across their group just after we all met up with each other."

"So you four are not all together," the king questioned.

"Not exactly. Me and Sora here were already hanging out together for a while, and we ran into these two characters just seconds before the guys who just left," Yuffie clarified, indicating Donald and Goofy when she mentioned a pair of characters.

"I see," the king hummed. "Though I doubt that you are mere travelers. After all, no one could be considered as such when they come from another world, much like each of you." That surprised the four, having not expected the king to go right to that conclusion so quickly, and considering how poorly disguised their shock was, it was no mystery that the king received all the confirmation he needed from their reactions alone. "That means…one of you is the chosen Keybearer, or was Kida mistaken when she mentioned one of you summoned a key-shaped weapon to your hand and slew several creatures of darkness, young man?"

Considering that the king's gaze was fixed so firmly on him, it came as no surprise that Sora was the one who managed to shake off enough of his shock to ask the obvious question. "How…How do you know about that?"

"Yeah, other worlds are supposed to be a secret," Goofy pointed out, covering his mouth as if he were whispering about some hidden conspiracy.

The king merely chuckled a little before he replied, "Even I am older than I appear to be, young ones, and I have been around long enough to have lived in the age when the Keyblade wielders were not sworn to an oath of noninterference and secrecy as they are now. Or as I thought they had become, but since you were so quick to summon your own blade, even if it was to defend others from such obvious creatures of darkness, I cannot help but wonder if something has changed since then."

None of the four were expecting that. Yes, the man was in fact very old, but if what he said was true, then he had to be several centuries old, if not a few millennia. At that thought, they then remembered that Kida was also his daughter, so it also made each of them wonder just how old she was, but as shocking as these revelations were, they were still able to table the long list of new questions for later so that they could focus on the ones pertaining to the current conversation. "Well…I wouldn't know for sure. I only just gained the ability to use the Keyblade a short time ago," Sora finally admitted.

"So…the age of rising darkness and the next war is upon us. Just as it was foretold," the king muttered to himself.

"What do you mean? What war," Yuffie asked. She was hoping that he was referring to the Heartless, but there was a very odd feeling in her gut that told her otherwise, and she did not like it one bit.

"Ages ago, before the time of the Maybermok…" the king began.

"The what," Donald interrupted.

"The Great Flood," the king clarified with a small cough, apparently not realizing that he had unintentionally spoken in Atlantean just then. "At any rate, before that terrible time, Atlantis was one of many worlds that were defended by the valiant and noble Keyblade masters. It was an age where all knew of other worlds, and the only darkness in existence was that of the creatures that thrived in the realm where they are born thrive. Sadly, it would not last, for some time later darkness began to infect the hearts of men, and even extended to the wielders of the Keyblade to the point where they began to war with one another. This led to a terrible time that legends call the Keyblade War, and though the outcome of the war was never clearly decided, as far as anyone of today would know, it did lead to a great change in how the Keybearers carried out their duties. Yes, the worlds were reborn after being lost into the darkness as a result of this cataclysm, but some of the remaining masters believed that they shared some of the blame for what had happened, and thus decided that they and all other wielders of the Keyblade would fade into the shadows, carrying out their duties in secret while keeping the existence of any of the other worlds that we live in today a secret from others. It was not perfect, but it was what they believed to be for the best."

"How do you know about all of this any way," Sora asked.

"One of my friends was actually chosen by the Keyblade when we were small children, and grew to become quite the impressive master by the time that the Keyblade War began. I only learned of what the masters decided because they did not wish for their followers to hide these truths from their closest friends and families, but sadly, after he told me this, I never saw my friend again," the king replied, sadly. "Though when we did last speak, he told me that the first Keyblade master possessed a book that contained many different prophecies of things to come, and one particular prophecy stood out to all among all the rest. It was said that one day, there would come an age where the Keyblade wielders would be pushed to the brink of extinction, and that darkness would once again threaten to consume all the worlds in a way that had never been seen before. How it would come to pass, no one has ever been certain, but they did know of one possible way to avert such disaster."

"How," Yuffie questioned, as she and the others were hanging on every word that the king was saying.

"It was foretold that one day, a new Keybearer would be chosen, one whose light would shine brighter than all other masters that had come before. This wielder would face the darkness, no matter how deep or powerful it may be, and find many allies, be they fellow wielders or even just great warriors that possessed powerful abilities and lights of their own, as he charged forward with Keyblade in hand, to save all those in need. But in order to do so, he would need to never let doubt or fear overcome him, and always remember that he held the greatest weapon of all deep within," the king replied. When he finished, his gaze was firmly locked onto the Keyblade wielder that was standing before him, and the silent implication was not lost to any of them for very long.

Even when he finally registered what was being said, Sora still had to glance around to see if there was anyone else there that the king could be inferring this about before he finally asked his question. "Are you saying that…you think I'm this chosen wielder from the legend?" The silence he received in reply was all the answer he needed. "But…But wait a minute! I literally just got Kingdom Key, I'm no master, and I definitely did not ever even ask for any of this! I just wanted to explore other worlds with my best friends, and now, all I really want is to find those friends and help my newest ones save their world from the supervillains that are threatening it."

"Fate has never been considerate of those it calls upon, my child, nor does it call at a time when we choose. Though this is an old prophecy, and I have not heard anything regarding the Keybearers in over a millennium, but if that time has come, then you may very well hold the key to stemming the tide of the coming darkness," the king dismissed, while providing Sora with only those words of caution.

The other three really felt bad for Sora now. He was already dealing with a lot before learning this, but finding out that he may have been chosen by destiny to save everyone in existence from some unknown darkness that may or may not already be here? That was way too much for anyone to handle, and Yuffie was not going to let him worry about it right now. "Whether that is the case or not, we do still need to get back to Midgard. Any chance you have a way of calling your friend so he could help us," Yuffie inquired.

"No. He may be Atlantean, but the moment he left our city, he lost his ability to live for as long as we do," the king denied. The others wanted to question him on why that was, but he quickly changed the subject, no doubt because it was a secret he did not wish to share with outsiders. "That said, he did tell me that the Keyblade was said to be gifted with the ability to sense when a world was in peril, and would transport its wielder to the world in question so that said wielder could resolve the situation as quickly as possible. Though this was before the masters discovered a way to use the Keyblade as a normal vessel to travel the worlds, and such a thing became unnecessary outside of a great emergency."

"Yeah, we kinda figured some of that out for ourselves. What we'd like to know is how we get it to send us back," Sora pointed out.

"If you are unable to will yourself back to your world, then the Keyblade will only send you home once you have completed whatever it is you need to accomplish in order to protect our world," the king explained. "No doubt it has to do with those dark creatures that Kida informed me of earlier when she brought you all here."

"Well then, I guess we'd better get working on stopping the Heartless, so you can go back to your friends, huh Sora," Goofy cheerily noted. Donald was about to protest what his friend said, but a simple glance from Goofy was all it took to remind the duck that they were still in the presence of royalty, so they should not be disrespectful and start up that argument again right now.

Sora and Yuffie were not quite as optimistic as Goofy though, because they knew exactly what it meant they would have to do. If they wanted to get back to Marvel-topia then they had to find and seal the Keyhole for Atlantis, and they were not really making any headway in finding the one that they had already been actively searching for. Sure, they had contend with tracking down and recapturing the Breakout escapees along with any other supervillains out there, not to mention their school work and other various responsibilities, but still did not change the fact that they had not even found a single hint on where the Keyhole on Midgard could be. With that in mind, you can see why they did not think they were going to be getting back to Avengers Mansion any time soon, because for all they knew, it could take even longer to find the Keyhole for Atlantis, assuming that sealing it was the reason for the Keyblade bringing them here. All the same, they still thanked the king for his help before they took their leave from his throne room.

When they stepped outside, they found that Milo and the others had all left, and with nothing better to do, they decided to go and try and find at least one of them. Of course, they were also resuming their previous discussion about whether Sora should stay with the Avengers or go with Donald and Goofy, but for the most part, it was just Donald and Sora insisting on the option that they were more in favor of. Goofy and Yuffie on the other hand spent the conversation trying to keep the peace amongst the group with little success, or just offering whatever alternative that they could think of that would keep both groups happy. Not that they could think of too many that were possible as far as they knew, but they did think that there might be a way for it to happen. Then again, Sora and Donald did not really seem to be listening to any of the very few alternatives that they did offer, as they were too busy just glaring at each other as they argued back and forth like children.

"I'm staying with the Avengers," Sora insisted for the twelfth time, and Yuffie was counting.

"But if you want to find your friends, they won't be able to help you search other worlds. Just theirs and we need you to help us find King Mickey, so you have to come with us," Donald retorted.

"Marvel-topia is a big place, and you can't honestly tell me that it's going to be any easier with your help than it will be without it," Sora countered. "Besides, no one's asking you to play babysitter for me."

"Well we didn't ask for it, either! We were ordered to stick with you by King Mickey," Donald reminded him.

"Come on, fellers. Don't you think that you're just going in circles with this now," Goofy asked, sounding like he was actually getting a little dizzy, which probably was not too much of a stretch, given how much he and Yuffie had been looking back and forth between the two as this argument continued on.

"No," the two both replied at once, earning them each a growl from the other.

"Oh sure; that they can agree on," Yuffie muttered to herself in annoyance.

Their conversation was put on hold once again though when they heard a loud crash from close by. Racing over, the group quickly found Milo and Kida lying on the ground while something seemed to be burrowing its way into the ground before it finally let out a sound to indicate that it was powering down. Their first thought was that the two were attacked by some sort of enemy machine, but given how there was more mild disappointment in their faces than there was actual fear, that was quickly dismissed in favor of their hurrying over to make sure the two were okay.

"What happened," Donald inquired.

"Uh…well, we were just figuring out how to operate an Atlantean vehicle, and it turns out the controls are a little…sensitive," Milo explained, sheepishly, while Kida just gave him an amused smile.

"Apparently," Yuffie snickered, with the boys following along soon after.

Kida and Milo both joined in on the laughter afterwards until the linguist realized something that he should have thought of before. "You know, we were never really introduced," he noted to the princess. "My name's Milo."

Realizing that they had not properly introduced themselves to her yet either, Sora's group was soon giving their own names to Kida as well. "I'm Sora," the Keyblade wielder waved.

"I'm the great ninja Yuffie," the ninja of the four proudly declared.

"Donald Duck."

"Name's Goofy."

Kida merely smiled in response to this and nodded in kind as she replied, "My name is Kidagakash."

Milo stumbled over himself as he tried to repeat her name in an attempt to pronounce it himself, but he was just barely doing any better than Goofy was at the moment. "Kiadasha…uh, Kianda…"

"Just call her 'Kida'," Donald finally snapped at the two.

If the princess was offended at all, she did not show it at all. Instead, she just chuckled and replied, "That's fine if you want. That's my actual nickname anyway."

"Okay. Kida. I can remember that," Milo nodded in thanks.

The four off-worlders all quickly exchanged knowing looks, feeling that it was obvious that Milo was crushing on the Atlantean girl, and just barely suppressed the knowing chuckles that were about to follow in favor of figuring out the bigger mystery. "What were you guys doing before the failed test-drive anyway," Yuffie inquired.

"We were actually just telling each other a little about both of our worlds, and it turns out that Kida was actually there when this city had sank beneath the sea thousands of years ago," Milo revealed.

"Seriously," the four all gasped.

"Yes," Kida confirmed with a smile, like it was really no big deal, and given what they had just learned from the king, it probably was not to her.

"Wow. I'd say that I hope I look that good when I'm your age, but I think that would be stating the opinion of every young woman alive," Yuffie joked with a grin, earning a few laughs from the others as well.

When the laughter passed, Kida's eyes lit up a little as if she just remembered something, and she immediately turned to the four who had just joined her and Milo. "Perhaps you all could tell us some things about your worlds as well," Kida requested, sounding like an excited kid in a candy store when she did. "Like what sort of people do you know, or what kinds of foods you have, or even something about your weapons and abilities!"

The four were not too sure what to make of that, and instead just turned questioning looks to Milo. "She's very curious about the surface world or really anything from outside Atlantis," he explained. "But I don't know why she would be asking you all about that sort of thing. I mean, you're all obviously from the surface like me and the rest of the crew."

"Maybe, but one of them is a Keyblade master, and at least two of them are clearly from another world aside from mine or yours," Kida replied in their place, blowing that little secret to Milo for them.

"Wait, what," Milo gasped in surprise.

At this point, the four were no longer bothered by that getting out, since it seemed that everyone in Atlantis probably knew about the Keyblade anyway, and one other factor that Yuffie actually pointed out. "Well, it's not like we're able to hide it too well, at least in regards to certain members of our group."

No one needed her glance in Donald and Goofy's direction to know who she was talking about, and surprisingly, neither of them seemed at all offended by it. At least not that much, but regardless, Sora felt that it was okay to at least tell Kida something. "Well, Yuffie and I are currently living on a world called Marvel-topia, and we're part of a team called the Avengers."

"Are they like some kind of hunters or guards," Kida asked, obviously very curious.

"Uh…Not exactly. We're actually superheroes working together to fight the battles that no one else can," Sora clarified as he reached into his pocket to retrieve his ID card so he could show it off. "And we all have one of these."

"What is it," Kida asked as she came closer to look at the card.

"An Avengers ID card. Every member of the team has one," Yuffie replied in Sora's place, showing off her own as she did.

"So you carry one and that makes you an Avenger," Kida asked to make sure she understood right.

"Well if you're given one by a member of the team and its set to your specific identification, then yeah," Sora shrugged. "But they also allow you to access everything in the Avengers' headquarters as well as talk to the other members of…the…team."

A minute after Sora had trailed off at the end, he and Yuffie both looked at each other with dumbfounded expressions and a minute later, slapped themselves in the face as they simultaneously said, "We're stupid."

"What's the matter," Goofy asked.

"We were so busy trying to think of way to get back to Marvel-topia on our own, that we didn't even think to try and call the others with our ID cards," Yuffie explained.

"You can talk to people on other worlds with those things," Donald asked, thinking that they may have found a loophole to their little situation of getting Sora to go with them.

"We're about to find out," Sora replied as he hit the call button on his card. "Sora to Avengers Mansion, does anyone copy?" He paused to wait for a reply, only to receive silence. He was not giving up just yet though. "Wasp, this is Sora. Do you copy…Tony? Steve? Hank…Does anyone copy?" Sadly, none of the people the kid called replied, and he could only sigh in defeat. "Well, I guess that answers the question as to whether or not we can reach the rest of the team from other worlds or not."

"Well at least we can still use them to stay in touch with each other," Yuffie pointed out, trying to look at the bright side of things.

"Good point," Sora replied as he pocketed his card and returned his attention to helping Milo answer any other questions that Kida had about their respective worlds.

Donald on the other hand was still staring after Sora, with a hand to his chin in thought. Even though he was so insistent on getting Sora to come with him and Goofy, he did respect how dedicated Sora was to keeping the promise he gave his friends on Marvel-topia, and did not want the kid to break said promise. Still, he did not think it would be possible for Sora to stay on Marvel-topia and help him and Goofy look for King Mickey and whatever he was searching for, until Sora and Yuffie brought up the ID cards. That action alone had immediately reminded Donald of something he had nearly forgotten about, and now, he had to wonder if maybe it could be just what they needed to resolve that one problem for everyone.

---

Talking with Kida was actually entertaining for a quite a while; despite her age, be it her actual age or the age she appeared to be at, she held a curiosity that was almost like that of a small, naïve child that was eager to learn everything there is about the world. Sure, it was a little hard explaining some things to her, some of which should have been easier to explain than others, but that actually did make it a little more fun. Sora and Yuffie could not help but laugh a little when she asked if Iron Man was an actual iron man or if Ant-Man was a giant ant turned into a human, but after a while, the entertainment value did start to lessen for them. After attempting to explain for the fifth time why Captain America was not the actual leader of all of America, they decided to just leave explaining things about stuff from outside of Atlantis to Milo while they decided to search for the Keyhole. If it was in Atlantis somewhere, then they should not have too much trouble finding it, and it was not like the city was as massive as New York, so there were not that many places where it could hide that they knew of.

Their search ended up proving as fruitless as the search for Marvel-topia's Keyhole, but then again, it would probably be a little easier if they knew of all the places in Atlantis that it could be. No one was going to kid themselves into thinking that any Atlanteans were going to tell them about said places either, given how the king and some of the guards and hunters seemed to view outsiders, but things were quickly reaching the point where some of them were considering the idea out of desperation. Not that the search was entirely fruitless, as Donald did take some time to offer Sora a few pointers on how to better control his magic. Sure, a good deal of it was basically a reiteration of what he had learned in that one vision he had on his first day of school, but it did help having an actual, regular user of magic lend a few more pointers that would better improve his control. Still, regardless of whatever help he may have gained, Sora still made it clear that he was not changing his mind about whether or not he would start going to other worlds with Donald and Goofy. After all, it may not be perfect, but if he could just teleport to other worlds with the Keyblade, then why would he need to fly in a ship to reach them? It just did not make sense in his eyes.

As it turned out, using a ship to reach other worlds was starting to seem more and more like a better idea, because the four spent literally the rest of the day, and most of that night searching for the Keyhole, until they finally met up back outside the palace again. It was the only place in Atlantis that they all knew how to get to easiest, so it made sense that they would use it as a rendezvous point when they finally finished their search whether they found something or not. They just wished that it was more of a case of the former than the latter.

"Seriously, how hard is it to find one stupid, magic passage that leads to the heart of an entire world, and is shaped like something you would see every day on anything that has a lock," Yuffie panted in question, having run all over the city several times over, both with one of the others or on her own.

"I guess Thor wasn't kidding when he said that the locations of the Keyholes are incredibly well hidden on each world," Sora noted as he rested his back against a wall.

"No kidding," Goofy and Donald both agreed as they shared a couple bottles of Potions to rejuvenate their energy.

After Sora and Yuffie got a couple potions of their own from the cartoon characters, the Keybearer asked, "Do you think Milo, Kida, and the others are having a better time than us right now?"

Right at that moment, they all heard what sounded like boots thudding against the ground in a loud march, and they turned to see Rourke leading his team up to the palace with weapons in hand, while Milo and Kida were clearly being held against their will. Kida more so than Milo, as Rourke was roughly pushing Milo along while the princess actually had her hands tied behind her back. "I'm going to have to go with no," Yuffie replied to Sora as the four moved to stand in a defensive line.

"Hey, what's the big idea," Donald demanded, his fingers flexing like he was about to summon out his staff and start blasting spells at any moment.

"What does it look like? We're getting what we came for," Rourke explained with a less-than-friendly grin. "And Mister Thatch, here, is going to lead us to it."

When the four looked at Milo, he just said, "Not willingly."

"Oh get off your soapbox, Thatch. It's like I told you earlier, we're just providing a necessary service to the archeological community, and earning quite a large sum of money as a bonus," Rourke informed him, sounding like he was being a real stand-up guy with the whole thing, but there was just no hiding how wrong what he was doing really was. Even less so when Milo filled in the blanks for the four who did not yet have the whole picture.

"For the last time, you don't know what you're dealing with, Rourke. The Heart of Atlantis is not just a large jewel. It's their life-force! That crystal is the only thing that's keeping these people alive, and if you take it away, they will die," Milo almost shouted, shocking all four off-worlders.

"Well like I told you before that just sounds like the price being tripled" Rourke retorted.

"And to us, it sounds like a reason to keep you from getting anywhere near the crystal," Sora snapped, Keyblade flashing into his hand in an instant, while the rest of his friends' weapons all materialized into their hands as well.

"Are you sure you want to try that," Rourke asked, still acting like he was holding all the cards.

"Just try and take another step forward, ya big palooka," Donald snarled before he charged in, ready to either blast someone with a spell at close-range, or just hit them with his staff.

Rourke just smirked and snapped his fingers, signaling the guard holding Kida to turn his gun on her. That made everyone freeze in their tracks, but Yuffie had to act quickly in order to stop Donald before he could get too much further, as he almost missed seeing that action take place. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Now if you folks would be so kind as to step aside," Rourke stated, waving the four out of the way like he was just asking them to move over a little so he could see something behind them.

"You're not gonna get away with this, Rourke," Goofy promised.

"Sure looks like I will to me, dog-boy," the commander waved off. He then motioned Vinny forward and said, "Do it."

While Vinny seemed like he was hesitant to carry out the order, he still placed an explosive at the door into the throne room, and set it to blow. A minute later, the four could only watch as the mercenaries who had been posing as explorers blasted into the throne room and began ransacking the place in a search for the Heart of Atlantis once they made it clear that Kida would be killed if her father or his guards tried to stop them. Seeing it all happen just served to make the heroes a little more and more angry, and Donald was just barely holding it together as it was for Kida's sake. To be honest, Goofy was actually a little impressed that his friend had not already flown off the handle and just charged them in a desperate attempt to either save Kida or beat down Rourke until he let her go, but then again, that was more like something Donald would have done very early on in their adventuring days.

No matter how much they wrecked though, they were not able to turn up any more clues on the location of the Heart of Atlantis than Sora and his friends were able to in regards to the Keyhole, and Rourke was proving to have even less patience in this matter than the heroes. "You're not applying yourself, son. There's got to be something else," Rourke scolded as he shoved Milo's journal at him, thinking that Milo might find something in it that could give them a better clue on where his prize was.

"Well there isn't," Milo insisted as he tried to push back against the larger man. "It just says 'the Heart of Atlantis lies in the eyes of her king.'"

"Well then maybe Old King Cole can help us fill in the blanks," Rourke decided as he tossed Milo aside before marching right up to Kida's father. "How about it, chief? Where's the crystal chamber?"

"You will destroy yourselves," was the only answer that the king gave.

"Maybe I'm not being clear," Rourke said, and everyone gasped in horror when they saw him punch the king right in the gut, sending him falling to the ground, and it did not look like the old man was getting back up. While the Milo and the four heroes were now glaring even more fiercely at Rourke and his crew just gaping in disbelief at what their leader had just done, Kida let loose a string of Atlantean words that they were all pretty sure translated into something that was not kid-friendly.

"Rourke, this was not a part of the plan," Sweet snapped as he rushed over to help the king like any reasonable doctor would.

"Plans change, Doc. I'd suggest you put a bandage on that bleeding heart of yours. It doesn't suit a mercenary," Rourke advised, still acting like he was not doing anything wrong, even as he sat himself down on the king's throne and made a show of loading his gun, much to Sweet and the others' horror. "Well as usual, diplomacy has failed us. Now I'm going to count to ten, and you're going to tell me where the crystal is," Rourke informed the king as he pointed his gun at him. "One…two…" When the king continued to give no answer, Rourke's patience seemed to finally run dry. "Nine…T—"

"No," Audrey interrupted, moving to stand in between her commander and the king. "Enough's enough, Rourke. This is wrong and you know it."

"Oh you can't be serious," Rourke sighed, clearly getting annoyed. "Audrey, get out of the way. I'm trying to get us our biggest payday ever. Now's not the time to grow a consciousness."

Audrey did not move. She just crossed her arms and stayed right where she was, and Sweet was soon moving to stand right next to her. Not that it was surprising that he did so, given that as a doctor, he felt he had a strong obligation to see to the health of his patient, even if said patient had been an enemy just a second ago, but Rourke was a little more surprised when Vinny, Cookie, and even Mole moved to stand next to her, with Milo moving to do the same as well along with Sora and the others. "The kids are right, Rourke. It's over the minute that the gravy's golden," Cookie agreed.

"So you're really going to turn on me? Now of all times," Rourke asked. "None of you are really any better than I am, you know."

"We're not saying we are," Vinny pointed out. "We've done a lot of things we're not proud of. Robbing graves, plundering tombs, double parking, but nobody ever got hurt." When the others cast him a look from out of the corners of their eyes, Vinny then amended, "Well, maybe somebody got hurt, but nobody we knew."

"Face the facts, Rourke. Your own people are against you on this, and if you really want to hurt anyone else, or get near that crystal, then you're going to have to go through us," Sora promised, Keyblade in hand and ready for action. He was a little curious about why Vinny would include double parking in his list of things that they were not proud of, seeing as it was not nearly as bad as the first two, but that was not really important right now.

Rourke just swept his eyes over the assembled group, searching for any kind of hesitation or doubt in their intentions to stand against him, only to find none at all. They were all really going to fight him on this if they had to, and he was both outnumbered and outmatched. At least, that's what it looked like, but apparently that was not the case, because Rourke only let out a tired sigh, glanced behind him, and said, "Looks like you were right. They didn't have the stomach for this."

"Well you know what they say: good help is so hard to find these days," replied a familiar, distorted voice, and the speaker did not waste any time stepping forward from the shadows in all of his dark, helmeted glory.

"Night Hunter," Sora snarled in recognition. "What're you doing here?"

"Oh you know. I was looking for a nice place to get away to for vacation and the brochure made this city seem pretty cool," Night Hunter jokingly shrugged before he turned serious again. "What do you think I'm doing here? I'm spreading the power of darkness to another world by setting the Heartless loose in it and granting their power to someone who I think could benefit from it. Like my new buddy, Rourke here."

"And speaking of Heartless," Rourke stated before he snapped his fingers, and an instant later, several Shadows, Soldiers, Wizards, and even some large, rotund Heartless that Yuffie identified as Large Bodies appeared all around the throne room, making everyone form a circle around the injured king, while Audrey simply cut Kida free from her bonds. "Now, let's try this again. His majesty's going to tell me where the crystal is, and you lot are going to stay out of my way until I get it."

"Or we just kick both your butts, destroy all the Heartless in the room, and you walk away with nothing more than your life," Yuffie counter-offered.

"You guys handle the Heartless and Rourke. Night Hunter's mine," Sora ordered as his helmet folded out over his head. "Avengers, assemble!"

No one moved in response to the battle cry. Instead, most of them just looked at Sora in silence until Yuffie pointed out. "Um Sora? This is us. We're already assembled seeing as you and me are the only two Avengers here."

"You might want to count again, because I see four Avengers," Goofy corrected as he stepped forward. "That is, if you don't mind me n' Donald joining up, of course."

That surprised the two a little, and Sora was quick to explain why. "I thought you guys didn't want to get involved with a team of heroes from another world."

"Well, you two are part of the team, and the king said we should stick with you, so I guess we don't really have a choice, do we," Donald smirked in reply. It was pretty clear by that smirk that he was more than willing to join up regardless, but they all figured that he was just explaining that line of logic so he would not seem like he was just going to throw the rules he was so insistent on following out the window with a tip of the hat.

"Hey, are you going to throw a tea party, or do you actually plan to fight while you still have people to save? Not that I mind either way," Night Hunter cut in as his sword appeared in his hand. He then lunged forward, heading straight for Sora, but the Keybearer easily intercepted the blade with Kingdom Key, and the two were soon battling it out with each other once more while the others did as Sora had ordered.

Milo, Kida, and Rourke's former crew did not just sit back and watch either. They were joining in the fight too, and they were certainly able to put up quite the fight, with and without their guns. Audrey was probably the fiercest of them as she showed off a fighting technique that was similar to that of a boxer, when she was not slinging a wrench she had on her at the Heartless, while Mole was probably the most unconventional in that he would pop up around random Heartless in hit-and-run tactics that made one think that the dark creatures were playing a game of Wak-A-Mole with him before he finally curled up in a ball and bowled them over. Cookie was firing off as many rounds from his shotgun as he could, and when he was not doing that, he was tossing out some of what he called the "bad slop" like it was a weapon. Strangely enough, most of it actually caused the Heartless to disappear on impact as quickly as they would if Sora had struck them with his Keyblade. Meanwhile, Vinny was going between shooting them with his own shotgun and just throwing out any explosives that he had on him, which turned out to be quite a lot from the look of things. When a Large Body nearly dropped down on him, he tossed a cherry bomb into its face that caused it to stumble over backwards and then destroy both itself and another Large Body and a couple Wizards when it finally collapsed on its back.

Vinny was a little shocked at this for a minute before he finally smirked a little and said, "Okay, now things are getting good."

"Speak for yourself," Milo told the explosive expert as he scrambled to avoid too much of the fighting, and only hitting back when he absolutely had to. Not that he was able to hit back with much, given that he was the least experienced fighter out of the group and did not have any weapons of his own besides his fists, mind, and the journal that he had deciphered so that they could find Atlantis.

"Milo," Kida suddenly called out, and he turned just in time to catch a spear that she had tossed over to him. With a real weapon now in hand, Milo was able to put up a much better fight than before. Sure, it was still a sloppy one, but it was better than just running or flailing around at anything dangerous that got too close to him.

It was no surprised that Kida was delivering quite the beat down on the Heartless. After all, the princess was leading a team of hunters when they first met her, so it would have been silly to think that she did not have some combat training at least, and she was showing just how much of a scraper she was. Though she was not opposed to the assistance that Goofy provided when he blocked a few fireballs or ice shards that would have greatly harmed her, and the knight was all too happy to provide any assistance he could to everyone on his side. Meanwhile, Donald was finally letting his pent up frustration loose in all of its burning glory, and a few Heartless actually seemed like they were attempting to run away from him as a result, given how many powerful spells he threw out at them. Sure, he spared a defensive spell or two here and there, but most of Donald's magic efforts were focused on the offensive or healing up anyone that needed it at a moment's notice, as Yuffie could attest to when the duck managed to cast a quick Cure on her when she took a nasty hit to the side that would have left her vulnerable to the Soldier that nearly knocked her out of the fight.

The only one who was not actively fighting either Heartless or Night Hunter was Sweet. Yes, he was fighting when he had to, but most of his focus was on protecting the old king while he saw to the injuries that he had sustained after Rourke had hit him. Needless to say, it was not looking good from what the doctor could tell, and he was fully determined to make sure that Rourke would pay in full if he ended up losing the old man. Rourke himself did not enter the fight right away, as he was simply content with just watching at first, but when it became clear that the tide was not turning in his favor, he finally stepped in and started firing on the heroes that dared get in his way. Thankfully, Goofy managed to intercept most of his bullets, and with Donald providing covering fire, Yuffie was able to get in close and deliver quite a few hard punches, kicks, and even a few stabs to Rourke whenever she spotted a chance.

All of this was blocked out of Sora's mind, as he was mostly focused on Night Hunter, who was proving to be just as fierce an opponent as the last time they had met. Sure, he did not have the distraction of a Heartless Boss threatening lives like before, but there were still Heartless threatening people all the same, and even without such distractions, he could tell that the dark warrior was certainly a much more capable fighter than the spiky haired teen was. Sora was not holding back though, but it was a little difficult for him to really focus too much on the fight with his archenemy when he could still catch glimpses of the others' fights from the corner of his eye. He knew that his Keyblade stood a better chance of slaying the Heartless than anything else, but with someone as dangerous as Night Hunter in play, Sora could not really afford to worry about the small fries. He needed to keep his attention on their leader, and to do that, he found himself calling upon a lot of his recent lessons with Yuffie and T'Challa.

Thankfully, that was turning out to be enough, as Night Hunter actually found himself having to try a little harder in his fight against Sora this time, but not to the point where he was actually going at full steam just yet. "Heh. Not bad, Keyblade Samurai. You've gotten better, but you're still nowhere near good enough to beat me," Night Hunter mocked.

"That's what you think," Sora stated as he lunged forward, ready to run his Keyblade through the masked man. Night Hunter easily teleported away from the attack, reappearing on Sora's left side, as he saw that the kid had left himself open there. Or so he thought, because he soon found his strike intercepted by Sora's Keyblade and he was then pushed back by the spiky haired boy a mere few seconds later. "But I think I've gotten a lot better since then. Besides, you haven't got any Heartless Bosses to distract me with this time, so that means you've got my full attention."

"Oh really? Well let me know when I should actually start trying then," Night Hunter mocked, and he suddenly redoubled his pace, putting Sora on the defensive once more. He kept the kid there for quite a bit, and Sora soon found himself nearly backed into a wall behind him, much to the villain's amusement. "Come on, Sora. I thought you were stronger than that."

That one comment made Sora freeze for a moment, because it sounded exactly like what Riku would say to him in some of their spars. Not just the words either, but the way it was said, even if it did have a more diabolical tint to it than it did whenever Riku said the line. Either way, his moment of pause proved to be an opening that Night Hunter was able to take easy advantage of, and Sora soon found himself blasted away by a burst of dark fires from the villain's off-hand, before he unleashed an energy wave with a single swing of his sword. Thankfully, Sora managed to roll clear of the follow-up attack, and was quick to try and get back on the offensive, clashing and parrying Night Hunter's blade against Kingdom Key as best as he could, but all the while, he could not help but notice how Rourke was slowly gaining an aura of darkness of his own as the fight dragged on.

Apparently Sora was not the only one, as Yuffie and the others took notice of this too, but only the ninja herself knew what was happening. "Sora! Rourke's starting to lose himself to the Heartless and their power," Yuffie called out. "If we don't take him out now, then we'll be dealing with a whole new Heartless entirely, and somehow, I don't think it'll just be another Shadow that appears when he turns."

"Oh dear. Guess I forgot to warn him about that little detail," Night Hunter shrugged in false concern. "You should probably hurry and do something before your friends have a more powerful Heartless to contend with, little hero."

Sora just snarled at Night Hunter in response, as the masked man stepped out of the fight and into a dark portal that had materialized behind him, evading capture once again, but he did not have time to worry about the dark warrior. His friends needed his help, and Sora was not one to ignore his friends when they were in need of any help that he could provide. That was why he did not hesitate to start charging towards Rourke, slashing and blasting any Heartless that were between him and the commander as he went. Rourke saw the kid coming, and instantly fired on him, but Sora managed to raise his Keyblade in time to deflect the first few shots, and allowed Goofy to block the rest with his shield when the knight suddenly raced in front of him. When Rourke paused to reload his pistol, Milo took the chance to toss his borrowed spear at the commander, and somehow managed to knock the gun out of Rourke's hand, much to both of their surprise. Thankfully, Sora was not thrown off by this, and immediately jumped up over Goofy and high into the air, his Keyblade drawn back at the ready so that when he came down, so did his blade, and it went right through Rourke in one fell slash.

After the kid had landed behind him, Rourke stumbled over on his feet for a minute, feeling a little light-headed at first, until a deep feeling of cold suddenly rushed over him when he finally started to fall to the floor. He had only just reached a point where his whole body felt like ice seconds before he had hit the ground, but barely even one second after he had, all feeling seemed to disappear, and Rourke vanished into a plum of dark smoke without leaving a single trace of him behind, save for his lost weapon. Everyone could only stare at where Rourke had just been until Cookie finally asked the question that everyone was wondering. "What in tarnation just happened to him?"

"His heart was overpowered by the Heartless," Yuffie explained, being the only one in the room that was most familiar with these dark creatures. "I've seen it before when the Heartless had laid siege to my home. The Heartless prey on the darkness within people's hearts; fanning it into an even greater flame, until the shadows completely overtake them and effectively turn them into a Heartless as well. Sometimes, it would just lead to the creation of a new Shadow, Soldier, or really any other regular Heartless, but if the person is strong enough, be it in terms of their heart or their will, then when they fall, a new Heartless Boss is likely to be born as a result. Of course, that's just a worst-case scenario, but there's no question that the power of a person's heart can often determine just how powerful their Heartless is when they fall to the darkness in their heart, and darkness is in every heart. The Heartless just somehow know how to fan the flames into a stronger blaze, likely out of a natural instinct or something."

"But wasn't there something we could've done to save him," Audrey asked. She may not have been onboard with what Rourke wanted to do, but that did not mean that she actually wanted him to die.

"Honestly if there was, I don't know what it could've been. No one's been able to turn back after they were that far gone. The only thing you can really do is put them out of their misery as quickly as possible. Better to make it quick than to let them suffer as a mindless monster of darkness that acts out on nothing more than animal instinct," Yuffie sadly reported. She then went over to Sora, having a good idea of what was likely going through his head right now, especially since he was now standing stock still, placed a hand on his shoulder, and reassured him, "Trust me, Sora. You did the right thing here."

"Yeah, so why do I feel so horrible," Sora asked in a somber tone. "I just killed someone after all."

"No you didn't. Rourke was dead the moment that Night Hunter granted him that power over the Heartless. All you did was release him from any further suffering he may have endured," Yuffie insisted. She then lowered her gaze a little before she added, "That doesn't mean that the first kill like this is any easier though. I'd have been more worried if you were able to do that and just brush it off like you had merely slain another monster."

Sora's gaze did not change for a few moments, nor did it move from the floor, but when it did, he managed to give Yuffie a grateful smile of thanks for her words, earning him a relieved smile from the ninja in return. All smiles quickly vanished though when Sweet called their attention to him and the king, instantly making Kida even more worried for her father. "How is he," Milo asked the minute they had reached the doctor.

"Not good I'm afraid. Internal bleeding. There's nothing more I can do for him," Sweet reported, sadly. It was always hard for a doctor to have to give bad news about their patient's wellbeing.

The bad news seemed to hit Milo almost as hard as it did Kida, as the linguist could only hang his head in sorrow as he muttered, "What a nightmare, and I brought it here."

"Ah don't go beating yourself up. Rourke had been after that crystal since Iceland," Sweet tried to reassure Milo.

Apparently it had more than the desired effect, because Milo's eyes quickly lit up with a look of inspiration. "The crystal…Sweet, that's it," Milo said as he cupped the crystal that the king wore around his neck. "These crystals that they wear…They have some sort of healing energy. I-I've seen it work. Kida, you used it on me when we first met in the volcano."

Sweet and the other non-Atlanteans all seemed to brighten up in excitement at this, but for some reason, Kida's sorrowful expression remained unchanged, and they soon learned why. "No," the king coughed, placing his hand over Milo's. "It…It won't work." He then glanced up at Milo and asked, "Where is my daughter?"

"I'm right here, Father," Kida replied, grasping her father's other hand to better show him.

That earned a smile from the old king as he gasped, "Thank the past kings…He did not find the crystal, and you were not chosen, like your mother before you."

"What," Milo and Kida both gasped, while the others just looked on with perplexed expressions.

"In times of danger, the crystal would choose a host, one of royal blood, to protect itself and its people. It will accept no other," the king explained.

"Are you saying that this Heart of Atlantis that Rourke was so obsessed with was…alive," Yuffie questioned.

"In a way," the king confirmed. "The crystal thrives on the collected emotions of all who came before us. In return, it provides power, longevity, protection, and as it grew, it developed a consciousness of its own."

"Almost sounds a lot like what I've heard about the Keyblade," Sora quietly muttered as he glanced down at Kingdom Key.

The king was not quite done with his tale though. "In my arrogance, I sought to use it as a weapon of war, but its power proved too great to control. It overwhelmed us and led to our destruction."

"That's why you've hidden it away. To keep history from repeating itself," Milo realized.

"And to prevent Kida from suffering the same fate as my beloved wife," the king finished for him.

"What do you mean? What would've happened to Kida if she was chosen by the crystal," Donald asked.

"If she were to bond with the crystal, and remain that way, she would likely have been lost forever," the king explained, shocking everyone, including Kida. The king looked to the princess and caressed her cheek as he said, "My love for you is all I had left, Kida. My burden would have become yours alone when the time was right, but now, I think that…it should fall to both you, and to him."

When the others turned to see who the king was referring to, it came as little surprise that it was Milo that he was passing his crystal off to. That did not mean it was not surprising at all though, but especially in Milo's case. "Me," the linguist asked.

"I see now that Kida was right when she said that our way of life was not thriving, but I believe, that you can help her to bring us back to who our people once were," the king explained once he had placed his crystal in Milo's hands. "Keep the crystal safe. Save and Protect Atlantis. Protect my daughter."

Milo just looked between Kida and her father for a minute, hardly believing that this was happening, but when the princess showed nothing but unwavering faith in him, while the king's eyes merely looked at him pleadingly, he found he could do nothing more than nod in response to the king's request. The king then turned his attention to Sora and his group as he said, "Keybearer, if I may make one last request, all I ask is that you seal the Keyhole of our city, so that those horrible creatures may never return to threaten it again."

"Sure, but we were already trying to do that before all of this happened, and we have no idea where it even is," Sora admitted to the king.

"You will find it in the chamber that holds the Heart of Atlantis, and as your friend said, the Heart of Atlantis lies in the eyes of her king," the king replied, pointing out to a spot directly in front of the throne, and they all saw what they had missed before. There, in the center of the room, the stones that lined a path atop the water in the middle formed an exact match to the symbol that was on the cover of Milo's journal.

Seeing this and now armed with the new knowledge, the four could only nod in silent reply to the king, and the old man simply smiled in return as his hand finally fell limp at his side, while the hand Kida held fell limp in her grasp, bringing a wave of tears from the princess as a result, while the others all bowed their heads in silent respect for the fallen king.

---

After giving Kida's father a worthy funeral service, or at least the Atlantean version of one, Sora led Yuffie, Donald, Goofy, Milo, and Kida down to the crystal chamber so that they could finally seal the Keyhole of Atlantis. This ended up being the easiest thing that they had to do since they got here, because the moment that they had fully descended into the crystal chamber, the Keyhole appeared between them and the Heart of Atlantis itself in a brilliant flash of light. They all stared at the magical passage for a moment before Sora felt Kingdom Key suddenly materialize into his hand and then jerk towards it, releasing a beam of light from its tip the minute that Sora had it fully directed towards the Keyhole. When the beam came into contact with the Keyhole, they all heard a loud, locking sound echo around them, and the Keyhole itself disappeared soon after. They all took that to mean that the Keyhole had been successfully sealed, and then left so that they could attend to any remaining business they had to take care of in Atlantis.

Rourke's former crew were all sure that they would be either killed or imprisoned for their part in what the commander had done, but given how valiantly that they had defended her home, Kida was willing to pardon them from any wrongdoings, gifting them each with their own crystals so that they would always be welcomed into Atlantis as friends. They were all very grateful for that, but when Kida offered to send them back home with a ship full of gold and jewels as a compensation for their inability to return the crystal to the surface world, they were quick to try and refuse, saying that they could not accept such a thing. Sadly, the new queen of Atlantis insisted, saying that it was the least they could do for their part in saving her people's home. When they began preparing for the return trip home, Milo revealed that he was staying behind to keep his promise to the late king and help Kida revive her people's dying culture and civilization. After all, he was the only one there who actually knew how to read Atlantean, so it only seemed right that he play a part in helping them to rediscover how great the lost empire's history was.

As for Sora, Yuffie, Donald, and Goofy, they too found themselves being gifted with their own Atlantean crystals as a sign that they would also be welcomed back into Atlantis as friends, should they ever return, with Kida saying that the other Avengers would be given one as well should Sora ever decide to bring them along when they next visited. The four graciously thanked Kida for her kindness, but were much more insistent on not accepting any treasure as a reward for their help in stopping Night Hunter, Rourke, and the Heartless. Well, most of them were at least. Donald was sorely tempted to take a jewel or two along with him, and probably would have if Goofy had not reminded him why they could not take anything other than the crystals that Kida had given them. That did not stop the duck from at least thinking about swiping an extra gem or two just because, saying that he was going to give it to his Uncle Scrooge as a little present when he and Goofy got home again, assuming that Scrooge was home as well when they did return. With all of that said and done, there was still one matter left for the four to resolve, and it was the very same one that they had been arguing over since they first arrived on this world and met one another. Sora and Yuffie were both sure that Donald was going to go into another rant on why Sora had to leave the Avengers and travel with him and Goofy, but they found themselves in for quite a shock when something else happened.

"Now remember, don't ignore bed times no matter what time zone you all are in, keep Dewey from jumping head first into anything as much as possible, don't let Huey have too much sugar, and…" Donald said into a small, yellow device that had the shape of a three-pointed king's crown resting at the top, before a Scottish accented voice cut him off.

"I run a multi-trillion dollar business. I can handle a few juveniles for a wee while. You just focus on this big job that Mickey has got ye and Goofy doing fer him. Besides, we've got some pretty low-key plans for while yer gone, anyhow," the Scotsman on the other end reassured Donald.

"Well, if you're sure, Uncle Scrooge. I just want to make sure that everything turns out okay, unlike the last time I left the boys with you," Donald reminded his rich uncle.

"Yer just never gonna let me live that down, are ye, lad," Scrooge complained, though from the sounds of things, it was a little more playful than it was serious. "Like ye keep tellin' the boys, yerself, I'm an expert at gettin' out of trouble, and I'm the best suited fer teachin' the lads how to get into and out of trouble the right way."

"Okay, okay. I just worry. Tell them I said hi, and that I love them," Donald finally said in resignation before he signed off and turned to see his two newest friends looking at him in awe.

"Are you telling me that you had a device that could call people on other worlds this whole time," Yuffie asked in disbelief.

"Well, not exactly," Donald sheepishly replied. "This Kingdom Caller can only send and receive signals to another Caller or a device similar to it, so it wouldn't have worked if you had tried using it to call your friends on Midgard, unless they had something that was really close to being just like it."

"Yep, but even with that draw back, it's the perfect way of staying in touch with folks even when you're all the way on a different world, no matter where it may be in the universe," Goofy finished. "The professor who invented it is a real genius coming up with a handy gizmo like that. Yes siree."

"Well do you guys have any spares or something," Sora instantly asked.

"Of course. We've got families back home that we like to stay in touch with, so we keep a few extra Callers around in case one is ever lost or broken somehow," Donald replied like it was obvious.

"Well then that solves all of our problems," Sora exclaimed in excitement. "If you guys give me one of these Kingdom Callers, you can keep searching other worlds for King Mickey while I stay on Marvel-topia to help the Avengers. That way, if you do find any clues, I can use the Keyblade to teleport to you guys, or I can even call you in case we ever need your help!"

"Hey, that's a great idea! Why didn't we think of that before," Goofy asked.

"I guess it just never occurred to us," Donald shrugged, hiding that he had thought of the idea long before now. Not that he was entirely successful, considering that Yuffie saw right through him if the knowing smile and wink she threw at him was any indication, but then again, if the wink he gave her in return was any indication, Donald did not really care about being found out this time.

With the problem of what Sora would do going forward now solved, it was only a matter of moments before Donald had teleported up to the ship that had brought him and Goofy to Atlantis before he came back with a couple of spare Kingdom Callers to give to Sora. When he had both devices pocketed safely, Sora summoned his Keyblade and gave a final wave to King Mickey's two best friends before making another attempt to return to Avengers Mansion with Yuffie. Thankfully, this time around, it seemed to work, as the two had vanished in a flash of light just seconds after Sora had the Keyblade out in front of him, and closed his eyes to focus on the mansion, and Goofy and Donald both departed from Atlantis a short while afterwards.

---

This time when the light died down enough for Sora and Yuffie to see without going blind, they instantly recognized their surroundings, and they were very relieved to see that they were back in the lounge of Avengers Mansion. In fact, they were so relieved, that they took a moment or two to take in everything that just happened to them until they finally let out an excited cheer over the fact that they were back where they needed to be. Their cheering kept to the lounge for a few minutes, and included some overjoyed hugs before they finally raced out to let the others know that they were home. The first person that they found turned out to be none other than Wasp, and Sora immediately latched onto her as he cheered happily, much to Janet's surprise.

"Jan, we're back! We're back," Sora happily announced as he hugged the size-changer tightly.

"Yeah…That's great to hear, Sora. But um…where did you go," Janet asked, confusion as evident in her voice as a clear sky on a nice summer day.

Before either of the two could answer, Hank came from around the corner, and said, "Oh, there you two are. I thought you two might want some help with getting your homework out of the way so you could better enjoy the rest of your weekend, but maybe next time, let us know when you're going to go out to spend time with your school friends?"

Now Sora and Yuffie were confused, and they made that evident when Sora said, "But…we've been gone for hours."

Now Janet and Hank were even more confused, and everyone's confusion grew when JARVIS reported that Sora and Yuffie had barely been gone for more than half an hour as far as his sensors could tell. That prompted an immediate trip to the lab that Tony was working in, with the younger Avengers thinking that JARVIS had some kind of bug in his systems, while the older two just thought that they needed to be a little more worried about the kids of the Avengers. It started to look like the size-changers were more than right to be concerned though, as Tony reported that JARVIS was completely fine, and when Yuffie checked the time on her phone, she saw that they were not kidding when they said that they had only been gone from the mansion for half an hour, much to her and Sora's surprise. When the others realized this, it led to the obvious question of why they were so shocked by this revelation, which of course led the two to explain the whole adventure that they had just had. Everything from arriving in Atlantis, to meeting Donald and Goofy, the most recent face-off with Night Hunter and the Heartless, and of course helping to save Atlantis by defeating Rourke and sealing the Keyhole.

By the time that Sora and Yuffie had finished telling the story, the other Avengers were beyond speechless for several minutes. When Hank finally did manage to regain his voice, he was more than ready to suggest that they had dreamed the whole thing up, until Sora produced the Kingdom Callers as evidence that the whole thing had actually happened. "Incredible," Hank gasped in awe. "A world where one of the greatest mysteries of all time has been solved and a device that can actually communicate with others from another world, no matter how great the distance? And the technology in this Caller…even JARVIS can't understand the exact scientific workings behind it."

"I'm surprised that the best men that Mickey sent to help Sora in all of this turned out to be Donald Duck and Goofy. Does anyone else think we should be a little worried about that," Tony half-joked.

"Hey, they may be pretty similar to how they are in the cartoons and movies, but they're also really great in a fight too. Sure, me and Donald got off on the wrong foot, but I'd say the fact that he let us have those Callers instead of just forcing me to go with him and Goofy on their ship should prove that he's not entirely like how he's depicted in those things," Sora pointed out in his new friends' defense.

"What I want to know is how come so little time passed here when we were on Atlantis for practically an entire day," Yuffie asked.

"That's easy. It's like I told Sora the night before his first day of school, time usually flows differently between two different worlds. What could be an entire twenty-four hour day for one world could only be five minutes for us, while a whole week for us could be barely more than a few minutes for someone else," Tony explained. "I think we should consider ourselves lucky you guys ended up on a world where it was a case of the former as opposed to the latter."

"Still, I was kinda hoping that we'd all be going with you when you finally figured out how to get to another world," Janet admitted with a pout, showing that she had been hoping to be able to go along on this herself more than any of the others. This did not surprise Sora, as the minute that Janet had heard he would have to travel to other worlds, she had been pestering him into making sure that she came along with him on as many of those adventures as possible. Of course, now that Sora knew how to get to other worlds, there did seem like there could potentially be a problem with keeping that promise; a problem that Steve quickly pointed out.

"Either way, are you sure that you can handle how you get to these other worlds now? If the Keyblade is supposed to just transport you to them the minute it senses that a world's in trouble, who's to say that it won't do so at a time that would prove problematic to a mission at hand," Steve mentioned.

"Cap's got a point. Who's to say that you won't get zapped away while we're in the middle of chasing down one of the Breakout escapees, or when we're fighting some other big supervillain," Tony asked.

"Well…I don't think that the Keyblade would do that…Maybe," Sora tried to reassure them.

"So you have no way of knowing for sure," T'Challa filled in for him.

"No, not really," Sora admitted. "But hey, now I know how to get to other worlds, so maybe figuring out how to keep the Keyblade from zapping me away to one that's in danger right away will be a little easier to figure out."

The rest of the Avengers did not really share Sora's optimism on the matter, since they knew that the kid's abilities with his other magic powers were still a bit shaky, but considering how excited he was over the fact that he now knew how to reach other worlds so he could help them, they did not have the heart to call him out on it. In the end, they simply decided to leave the matter alone for now and return to what they were doing before. Though Hank decided to hold off on helping Yuffie and Sora get through their weekend homework tonight, because from the way they were excitedly recounting their story to Janet once again, he just knew that they were not going to be able to get much done on it tonight.

---

AN: And there ya go! Sora's now able to travel to other worlds with a little Keyblade abracadabra, they've met Donald and Goofy, found a way for Sora to work with those guys and still stay with the Avengers, and they helped save Atlantis from Rourke, Night Hunter, and the Heartless.

Yuffie: Anyone else feel like the story played out a lot differently from how it did in the movie?

AN: Well, since when do you remember the story of a Disney movie going the exact same way as it did originally when it shows up in the Kingdom Hearts series? Besides, if I did all of the Atlantis adventure, even from the point when Sora and the others entered into it, the chapter would've been a little too long for my liking, and I wanted to get this first world done in one chapter.

That said, who was expecting Kida's father to know something about the Keyblade? Hm? You didn't, did you? Part of me wanted to make him into this story's version of King Triton, but then again, having Sora be subjected to that kind of treatment so soon into his Keyblade wielder career would've been a little mean. We did still drive home the lesson about how you can't always save everyone to Sora with the Atlantean king's death, but I'm not entirely sure if we should be thankful for that or not.

Goofy: Well better to learn that lesson sooner rather than later, so maybe it is a good thing.

Donald: By the way, what's the big idea with those Kingdom Caller thingies that we had here?

AN: That's actually based off a thing that appears to be happening in Kingdom Hearts 3. You see, in one of the recent trailers for the game, we saw Sora talking to Ienzo from Twilight Town, while the young scientist was in Radiant Garden, and they were using the very devices we saw in this chapter. I'm not sure if that's what they will be called or not, but I honestly just named them as such because it seemed appropriate, mainly because of how the main gummi ship is usually named the Kingdom. And really, let's be honest, if Donald and Goofy were well-known fictional characters on Earth, or rather Marvel-topia, do you really think that I would be adding them to the official Avengers line-up. That doesn't mean that they won't be working with the Avengers or coming to Marvel-topia from time to time, but their main focus is to search the other worlds for clues on where King Mickey is, and I suppose you could say that they're also helping Sora look for Riku and Kairi on other worlds too, even if it wasn't actually mentioned.

Sora: Plus, Scrooge Mcduck got to make a cameo appearance too. Along with a few references to the events of Ducktales.

AN: Yeah, that was fully intended to be as it appeared. You can interpret it however else you like beyond that, but take this as confirmation that some of the things in Ducktales, be it the new series or the old one have happened in this series. That said, I'm not one hundred percent sure I spelled any Atlantean terms I actually used here correctly, so cut me some slack on that if I did mess up there, please? It was proving impossible for me to find the actual spelling for those words anywhere that I looked.

Captain America: You know, I feel like the Heartless and Night Hunter did not really have much of a role this time around in the chapter, especially given that it was the latter's second official appearance in this story.

AN: Well to be honest, the main intention behind this chapter, was to help Sora better understand how the Keyblade could teleport him to other worlds, why, and basically everything else involved with said matters. Sure, there was also the sealing of the first Keyhole in this story, but even that was a minor note in comparison to everything else in this chapter. Don't worry, the next world we visit will have the characters from said world and the bad guys being involved, as you'll all soon see.

Wasp: How soon?

AN: Try next chapter soon. Don't believe me? Then move Onto the Preview!...

Sora's next adventure on another world comes much sooner than anyone expects, only this time, he's zapped off to another world with Thor and Hulk along for the ride. Thankfully, any irritation that anyone has over the sudden trip is quickly put aside when they realize that the world they had landed in is one that Thor is familiar with, and it is hosting a tournament that would pit great warriors against one another in battle. Despite entering this tournament for both a chance for Sora to better improve his combat abilities and for some fun, the three Avengers find themselves caught up in a sinister plot that the local villain has for that world's greatest hero, who turns out to be an old friend of Thor's. Can the team stop this diabolical scheme and save Thor's friend, or will the fighter that this underhanded Lord of the Dead has brought in prove to be more than they can handle? Be ready for the next contestant, in the next thrilling chapter.

Yeah, in case it's not clear, Hulk and Thor are going with Sora to the next world, and if you know the first Kingdom Hearts game's story, then there's only one world that it could be. But this is also the part where I may have to disappoint some of you, because I'm going to tell you right now that...Cloud's not going to be there.

Sora, Hulk, & Thor: What?! Why not?!

AN: Because he's off on another mission of his own in this series at the moment, and it's a very important one that has a stronger chance of leading him to Sephiroth or people like him. Don't worry, the warrior they fight will still be from the Final Fantasy series. I just hope no one gets too upset with who it is that I have them fight.

Hulk: I feel like this is also where Thor's most famous line from Thor Ragnarok is finally going to come into play.

AN: That's a good hunch, but it may be a while before I post that chapter, because there's another Kingdom Hearts story that is long overdue for its posting which I intend to get up as soon as possible. That's right. For you Keyblades Unleashed fans and followers, I can confirm that Keyblade Legion will finally be making its big debut at last, because its first chapter will be the next thing that I post on here.

Roxas: Yes! Finally!

Xion: I can't wait to finally get those chapters posted so that everyone can see how much more awesome we'll be this time around!

AN: Well just try to hold it in a little longer you two, because for now, there's something else that I'd like my readers and followers to do.

Please read and review, and see ya real soon, fellow true believers!