Back with another chapter! This one is pretty short, but fun to set up where we are in the story in the present! Before we begin, I just wanted to thank everyone who checked this story out when I posted it last week. Stick with it, because the best is certainly yet to come!

Chapter 1: A Rumor on the Islands

It's a rumor, a legend, a mystery,
Something whispered through an alleyway or through a crack
It's a rumor that's part of our history!

Eight years later…

The Destiny Islands used to be a paradise. Now, it was nothing more than a prison.

No one could escape, though many had tried and all had failed. Any and all Gummi Ships the islanders once used to travel between worlds had been destroyed under the orders of Organization XIII. Even if there was a working ship to spare, the sky had been all but sealed with shadows that blocked the sun and kept any vessels from getting out or even in. Not that anyone would even want to come to the Destiny Islands anymore.

On that awful morning eight years ago, people all across the islands awakened to a world they barely recognized. In one fell swoop, the royal family had been eliminated, the king and queen slain and every last one of their poor children along with them. The castle was left burned out and abandoned as the man now hailing himself as their ruler built his own floating palace with just a mere burst of dark magic. That magic quickly crushed any rebellions or resistance that sprang up against Xehanort and his Organization in those early days after the fall. It wasn't long before only the threat of unleashing the Heartless alone was enough to get the people to fall in line under the cruel command of their new king.

Still, that didn't mean any of them were happy about it.

With the sun concealed by nearly constant clouds, the islands grew colder. The seas became rougher, unsuitable for fishing, and on land, things weren't much better as once-bountiful crops began to shrivel up. Despite nature itself turning against them, the people were still forced to work to line the pockets of their "king" and his cronies. High taxes were imposed where there had been few before, and in just a few months' time, even the most wealthy among the islanders were left destitute and desperate. And while the common folk struggled simply to feed their families, the Organization would feast on the finest food and wine their subjects' munny could buy.

As for the Organization, they were every bit as effective at policing the people as the Heartless they held power over. Most of its members were cruel and cunning, skilled warriors who were not above unprovoked acts of violence. Whenever they strolled through the streets, anyone who was unfortunate to cross paths with them knew to look away and stay quiet. The last thing anyone wanted was to catch an Organization member in a foul mood.

Few ever saw King Xehanort himself in the flesh. Those who were unlucky enough to get an audience with "his majesty" were usually dragged to him in chains, branded as traitors or rebels before being turned over to a pack of hungry Heartless. Of course, he knew his subjects loathed him, that they feared him, that almost every last one of them wished he was dead instead of their former rulers. And yet, Xehanort couldn't have cared less. All that mattered to him now was that he held the islands under his complete, unquestionable control.

All that mattered was that this world belonged solely to him. The first of what he hoped to be so many more.

In the beginning, the people hoped for a savior, for a hero from some far off world to swoop in and liberate them from this endless oppression. But as the first few months of misery turned into years, reality started to slowly set in. The longer they waited for that hero, the more their hope started to die out. The more it became clear just what had happened to them, just what they'd lost.

In but a single night, their world had turned upside down. And now, the peaceful prosperity they'd once known was now as dead as the royals who had once protected them were.

Or at least… that's what they'd been told.

It started small, as all gossip does. It took time for it to spread from village to village, from island to island. But sure enough it did, carried by words carefully whispered on the wind, by notes passed whenever the Organization wasn't looking. And, in just eight year's time, that small spark had been fanned into a flame that even Xehanort and his followers couldn't snuff out.

"Have you heard the rumors?" a woman asked her neighbor while hanging up her washing.

"Have you heard what they've been saying out on the streets?" a man muttered to his brother behind an Organization member's back.

"Someone told me they saw something that night," the baker told his butcher.

"They said they saw a boy running through the square," a seamstress whispered to her friend.

"And that boy looked just like one of the princes!" a fisherman huffed as he heaved an empty net out of the water.

"They say all of the royals died-" the buzz grew louder across the square until the excitement could scarcely be contained.

"But Prince Sora might still be alive!" They almost cheered his name, basking in the hope the very idea brought them. The chance, however small, that some remnant of what their kingdom used to be had actually survived that catastrophe after all. That perhaps all that had been lost could still be found.

Though that hope had already spread to so many across the islands, not everyone shared it. Many doubted such incredible claims, dismissing them as little more than urban legends, stories made to cheer up children. For certainly, if Prince Sora were still alive out there somewhere, wouldn't he have shown up by now? Wouldn't he have returned to take back the throne that was now rightfully his?

Wouldn't he have come to save them from their suffering when no one else could?

Riku bristled, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets when he heard the lost prince's name for what felt like the 100th time today alone. He wished the townspeople would be more careful; if any Organization member caught them mentioning the former royal family, they could wind up in prison, or worse. If it were up to Xehanort, every last trace that the royals even existed would be wiped out entirely.

Still, that didn't mean they wouldn't live on in their peoples' memory.

"I heard Prince Sora was spotted sneaking on a ship and leaving the islands that night!" Riku overheard a pair discussing the rumors as he entered the market. "I can't even blame the kid; if I were him, I would have gotten out and stayed out too!"

"Tch, that's just a bunch of nonsense." He tried tuning out the owner of the stall he was hoping to buy some bread from. Unfortunately, the man talked far too loud, far louder than he should have; everyone knew the Organization heard just about everything. "I bet you every last munny I have that the prince was caught and killed right along with the rest of his family."

"Or worse yet," the woman at the next stall over cut in. "He was turned into one of the Heartless."

The group of gossipers jumped when Riku suddenly slammed his munny down on the counter and stormed off with his loaf of bread, not wanting to hear another word. "Yeesh," the stall owner frowned. "What's that kid's problem?"

Riku kept the rest of his shopping trip brief. He'd already used up all of the munny he had on the bread, so he took whatever else he needed to get whenever shop owners weren't looking. The past eight years had taught him well how to get by on almost nothing. If only they'd taught him how to stop feeling anything too.

He remembered when he heard the first rumor, how he'd gotten his hopes up so high, only to get nothing but pain in return. He'd spoken the prince's name a bit too loudly in front of Larxene, one of the Organization's newer and most savage members. The agonizing bolts of lightning she'd sent searing through his veins had been enough to silence him, but not to stop him from hoping. The only thing that had been able to do that had been the years he'd spent wondering if it could be true, years he'd waisted waiting on something that, at the end of the day, was nothing more than a dream.

A dream that died on that day eight years ago when the world went dark, when one of the only two people he still loved had been forever taken away.

He couldn't bear to listen to the rumors anymore, couldn't bear to think about what might have been. So instead, he kept his head down, his mouth shut, and his heart closed off. It was the only way to survive in a world like this one, in a world with no future, with no light.

With no Sora.

Riku had nearly made it out of the market when someone said it, a name he hadn't heard in years. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked up to the source of the conversation, a pair of older men pouring over a newspaper. While people couldn't get in or out of the Destiny Islands, that didn't mean other things couldn't; letters and papers often slipped through the barrier, the last lone connection the islanders had to the outside worlds. Such distant news rarely ever mattered to Riku, from worlds he'd never been to, worlds he'd never see. But what was written on the front of this newspaper was different.

This newspaper was from Radiant Garden.

"Can you believe it?" one of the men reading the paper balked. "Princess Kairi of Radiant Garden is offering ten million munny to anyone who can bring Prince Sora to her alive!"

"Poor girl must truly be heartsick to be willing to pay that much," the other man shook his head. "Shame all that munny's gonna go to waste. Even she's gotta know the prince is dea–HEY!"

Both men were taken aback when the newspaper was suddenly pried clean out of their hands. Riku dropped the sack of food he'd gathered at the market at their feet, barely looking back as he absently told them to keep it. What he'd just gotten his hands on was much more valuable by far.

He read the front page article at least five times on the way to the far side of town, making sure to keep such "forbidden literature" out of sight any time an Organization member was nearby. Sure enough, the paper detailed the princess's plea to essentially every world there was to help her find her lost prince. It turned out that rumors of his survival had reached as far as Radiant Garden, and as soon as Kairi had heard them, she jumped at the chance. "I'll do anything it takes," the newspaper quoted her. "Anything to have Prince Sora by my side again."

"You and me both, Kairi," Riku sighed to himself. He couldn't stop himself from staring at the princess's photo printed on the front page. She was sixteen now, he figured, the same age Sora would be if he were still alive and still just a year younger than Riku himself. She'd already been very pretty when she was younger, but in the years that have passed, she'd blossomed into a beautiful young woman. The only thing that marred that beauty was the clear sadness she carried in her eyes, the same sadness Riku had felt every second of every day for the past several years.

The longer he stared at her picture though, the more an idea began to form inside of his mind. At first, he dismissed it, just as he'd dismissed the rumors about the lost prince that started all this. But then, his gaze drifted up toward the dark, overcast sky, to the invisible barrier no one had been able to break for almost a decade now.

At least… no one without a Gummi Ship.

Riku started running before he could second guess himself again. Along the way, he tightly folded the newspaper up, hiding it in his pocket as a proof point for his new plan. All he had to do now was try to convince them that he wasn't crazy, that this could work, that they'd finally found their ticket off of these damned islands for good.

All he had to do now was convince himself that he might just have a chance at seeing one of his best friends again after all.

Before the fall, the Destiny Islands had a fine museum, home to countless artifacts carefully preserved to tell the story of the kingdom's rich history. When Xehanort took over, he deemed that history unnecessary, claiming that only the future mattered now. He closed the museum, had it boarded up and most of its treasures tossed into the sea. Yet even then, he couldn't stop the people from clinging onto whatever shreds of the past they could. Just like he couldn't stop some from trying to make a profit off of that past.

Over the past few years, the museum had been converted into a black market of sorts. Inside its once-hallowed halls, scrappers sold whatever they'd been able to salvage from the kingdom they used to know, a kingdom many still longed to get back. The Organization knew what was happening here, of course; but a generous cut of its profits were enough to keep them from closing it down or telling their king about the illegal market.

So the unscrupulous sellers continued preying upon the people's nostalgia. They pedaled counterfeit merchandise they claimed belonged to the royal family, as well as anyone other visiting dignitaries who had been at the palace that night. It was a lowly, despicable practice, one that Riku wasn't a fan of in the slightest; still, that didn't mean he didn't frequent the market just to see what latest lies were on sale.

"Five munny for this painting!" a peddler called, waving around a portrait of the king. "It's authentic, I swear!"

"Stuffed toys for sale!" another woman shouted from her stall. "They were once played with by little Princess Xion herself–maybe. Probably."

"I found this in the palace, initialed with an S!" Riku was stopped by one of the sellers shoving a coat into his face. "It could be worth a fortune if it belonged to Prince So-"

"I'm not interested," Riku shoved the coat away, scowling as he passed the salesman by. That coat was just another fraud, like almost everything else sold here. He'd never seen Sora wear something like that even once. Still, someone else was gullible enough to step up right after him and pay likely every last munny they had for the cheap coat. All because of a few baseless rumors.

Even more rumors were rippling through the market today than usual. It seemed as though everyone had read the same paper Riku had as they were all buzzing with theories about where the prince could be and ideas how someone could possibly get him to the far-off princess to claim her lofty reward. Riku couldn't help but roll his eyes at some of their outlandish suggestions; fortunately, he already had figured out the "how" when it came to his plan. All he really needed to sort out was the who.

A frustrated squawk suddenly rang through the market. Riku followed the noisy fussing that came after it, already knowing all too well who it belonged to. Sure enough, he found the pair arguing with a seller, something that happened nearly every time they came here thanks to Donald's short temper.

"I'm telling you, that hat is mine!" he shouted, furiously pointing at the blue cap in the peddler's hand.

"It can be yours for the low, low price of eight munny," the man smirked, holding it out of his reach. "You know, I should be charging much more than that seeing as how this hat used to belong to Donald Duck, Court Magician at Disney Castle-"

"I am Donald Duck!" he stomped his webbed foot.

"...Really?" the salesman eyed him, unconvinced. "I don't see the resemblance."

Donald yelled again, shaking a fist at the man. Fortunately, Goofy stepped in just in time before any violence could erupt. "What if we gave ya four munny for it instead?" he asked much more calmly.

"Eight," the seller stood firm.

"Uh… three?" Goofy tried again.

"Eight."

"Two?"

"I said eight!" the seller snapped, annoyed.

"Well, shucks," Goofy counted through the munny in his hand. "We've only got one…"

"I'll pay for it," Riku stepped forward, putting the eight munny down.

"There you are!" Donald huffed. He eased up, however, when Riku handed his coveted hat over to him.

"Gawrsh, Riku," Goofy muttered to the boy as they walked away from the stall. "Where'd ya get eight whole munny from?"

Riku didn't answer right away. Instead, he tossed the dog trailing behind them the bone he'd been saving for him. Pluto eagerly caught it, gnawing on it as he trotted to catch up with the group.

"Riku…" Donald frowned at the boy's prolonged silence. "What did we tell you about pickpocketing?"

"Hey, it got you your hat back, didn't it?" Riku shrugged. "But don't worry. Soon we won't have to scrape by just to survive anymore."

"You sound like you've got an idea brewin'," Goofy grinned, curious.

"Not another one…" Donald sighed, already exhausted.

"I'll tell you about it on the way back," Riku glanced around the busy market. "There's too many people here. Let's go."

They hurried out of the former museum, making sure they weren't being tailed by anyone from the Organization as they made their way to the docks. The bridge connecting the main island to the smaller one the royal castle stood on had been destroyed long ago. Still, that didn't mean there weren't still ways to get there for those who really wanted to. Most didn't, wanting to stay away from the castle they claimed to be "haunted" by the ghosts of the royal family. But for Riku, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto, that supposedly haunted castle had become the closest thing they could call a home.

The castle had also been where Donald and Goofy had found him, wandering the empty halls alone eight years ago. Riku didn't tell them why he was still there, didn't tell them he used to work at the castle at all. In fact, for those first few weeks, he didn't really say anything at all, still shaken by everything that had happened, everything he'd seen. Everything he'd lost.

The captain and the court magician had been stranded on the islands, like so many other guests who had been at the ball that night. Their Gummi Ship had been destroyed by the Heartless before they could get to it, as had any way they could have contacted home. Certainly, King Mickey would be missing them–and his beloved dog Pluto, which the pair had brought with them–and send help soon. Except… he didn't. He couldn't, no one could.

So there the two had remained for the past eight years, stuck on the doomed islands so far from home. Perhaps their homesickness was exactly why they'd decided to take that little lost boy under their wing or why they'd decided to take up shop in the lonely remains of the ruined castle. Perhaps that's why the four of them had stuck together, relying on each other for some semblance of comfort and warmth in a world that grew crueler and colder by the day.

They paddled their canoe to the far side of the island, keeping themselves out of sight as they snuck into the castle through one of its many hidden entrances. Most of its doors and windows had been boarded over, the castle kept off limits under orders from the Organization. Riku couldn't help but pride himself on evading their notice for so long.

"You can't be serious," Donald said as they worked their way up to their quarters in the attic. Riku had already told them everything on the boat, showing them the newspaper and laying out the basic details of his plan. A plan that, just as Riku anticipated, neither of his friends were exactly on board with, at least not yet.

"I am," he asserted. As soon as they made it to the attic, he took out a star map he'd found, plotting out a course through the Lands Between. "If we can get the ship working, then all we'll need to do is find a boy who looks like S–t-the prince, teach him what to say and how to act, dress him up, and take him to the princess."

"Wait… ya mean… we're gonna lie to her?" Goofy scratched his head. "I thought we were gonna find the real Prince Sora, not someone pretendin' to be him."

Riku sighed, trying his best not to state the obvious again. Donald and Goofy always had been more susceptible to the endless rumors than he was, even if they were proven wrong at almost every turn. "It's not lying, it's just-"

"A con," Donald crossed his arms, plopping down into his usual couch. Goofy took a seat alongside him, chuckling as Pluto hopped up to lick his face. "A fraud. A scam. And if the Organization catches us running that scam, then we're all as good as Heartless!"

"They won't catch us," Riku assured. "We'll be off the islands before they even know what's going on. And once we present our 'prince' to Princess Kairi, then she'll be so grateful that she'll hand over that reward without a second thought." He threw on a convincing smile as he sat down between the pair, throwing his arms around their shoulders. "Just think of it; we'll have more munny than we could ever ask for. Enough munny to finally get the two of you home…"

"Back to Disney Town?" Goofy asked. "Gawrsh, it's been so long… It'd be so great to go back and see all our friends again. King Mickey, Queen Minnie-"

"And Daisy…" Donald sighed, lovestruck.

Pluto barked his support, his tail wagging in rapid excitement. "So," Riku stood, smirking. "I'd say the benefits easily outweigh the risks. Don't you guys agree? I mean, we'd be rich-"

"We'd be out!" Donald hopped up to his feet.

"And the islanders would sure have a lot more to talk about!" Goofy laughed.

And I'd get to see you again… Riku's smile softened as he looked down at the newspaper in his hands. At the princess on its cover, waiting for a prince who would likely never come. Any fake prince they might find wouldn't leave the void Sora left behind in both of their hearts. But maybe they could begin to mend that void by finding each other again. Maybe they could still keep the love they both had for him–and for each other–alive after all.

"Let's do it!" Donald and Goofy proclaimed. Riku smiled up at them, but stopped listening as they began to plot out the finer details of their plan.

He left them to it as he stepped out onto the attic's small balcony, holding the newspaper close to his chest. He looked up to the sky, noticing a single star peeking through the dark clouds. Despite the hope swelling in him, a pang of sudden guilt permeated his thoughts.

How could he do this? How could he make such a mockery of the lost life of one of his best friends just to see the other? How could he disgrace Sora's memory like this when the only thing the middle prince had ever shown him was kindness and care? How could he hope to stand face-to-face with a fraud… and knowingly lie to Kairi that he was the real thing?

"I'm sorry…" he told them both, his eyes still set on that star, on the sky. "But I have to do this…" He looked back down at the princess's photo, his heart still aching with pain that had never gone away. It likely never would. "I have to see you, even if it's just one last time…"

And so our story is set in motion! Next time around, we'll meet a certain orphan boy with no memory of his past... Until then, please don't forget to REVIEW! Until next time!