Simply astonishing! Today I had a guest from another world. He is a king, and his vessel is built of the material that composed the meteors. He called the pieces "gummi blocks." It seemed that my opening the door has opened a path to interworld travel.

We talked for countless hours, but one story in particular caught my interest: that of a key called the "Keyblade." The Keyblade is said to hold phenomenal power.

One legend says its wielder saved the world, while another says that he wrought chaos and ruin upon it. I must know what this Keyblade is. A key opens doors. It must be connected to the door I have opened.

As Jaune read the newest Ansem Report out loud, the mention of a king caught everyone's, especially Donald and Goofy's, attention. "Wait...could this be talking about your king, Donald? Goofy?" Jaune inquired.

"It's gotta be!" Donald proclaimed enthusiastically. That would mean that King Mickey knew Ansem!

"So wait, this king you two serve. He had a ship like this one and has been traveling around the worlds before you did?" Sun interjected curiously.

When he put it like that, it made the court wizard and guard captain wonder more about this whole thing. "Gawrsh. How do ya think the King and Ansem know each other? I thought the worlds weren't supposed to be connected." Goofy wondered.

Ruby gasped as she remembered something. "Wait a minute...Professor Ozpin mentioned that he knew the King when I first met Sora, Donald, and Goofy in Traverse Town."

Everyone turned to her, both with surprise and curiosity toward what she was getting at. "Wait, are you implying that their king may have come to Remnant at some point, Ruby?" Pyrrha asked.

"I dunno. You'd think someone would have seen and reported sightings of a ship that looks like this. It's not exactly...subtle." Jaune said, gesturing around them to the deep, vast, starry void.

"Of course you'd know all about subtlety, wouldn't you Jaune." Weiss commented with a sarcastic roll of her eyes.

Before Jaune's pride could take another hit, Ren interjected saying, "Jaune brings up a fair point. The fact that nobody would have reported anything about a ship like this flying around is surprising."

Ren's words caused a wave of concern to spread along the Remnent denizens. "You don't think Ozpin had it covered up and then chose to hide it to us, do you?" Blake said curiously.

"Wha? No way. There's not a chance. Ozpin would never hide anything from us. Why would he?" Nora said, waving it off like the idea was silly...though the possibility lingered in her mind, and it wasn't a pleasant one to say the least.

"But it does make you wonder...If he knew about other worlds all along, how did he meet Donald and Goofy's King?" Yang questioned, smoothing out her lustrous golden locks.

"Yeah, that's a good point. You guys told me and Neptune when you caught us up on everything that Ozpin was friends with that king. So either it was just some bizarre coincidence, like us landing in Neverland for you guys to find...or he knew more about these other worlds than he let on." Sun said with a skeptic frown.

"Well, I don't really know much about the professor compared to the rest of you, so...I don't think I'd be able to judge." Sora said with a shrug.

Pyrrha gave a small shiver before looking to her side, rubbing her arm. Jaune noticed and felt rather concerned by her shift in demeanor. "Pyrrha? Is something wrong?"

"Oh. Um... well..." she started saying before she pointed out the cockpit window. "Look."

Everyone turned their attention to what she saw. And immediately, they all felt that same shiver run through them. A new world, looking like a large fortress building made in a menacing structure with foreboding architecture. Especially with the massive Heartless emblem at the central front of it. All while on top of a massive set of water with pipelines and other machinery. "Wow. Subtle." Weiss said sarcastically.

"Yeah. Where's the giant sign that says 'Evil Fortress Here' or whatever." Yang said with a soft snicker.

"I don't know. Just looking at that place makes me feel empty." Ruby said, feeling worried as she gazed at it.

"Guess that's why it's called 'Hollow' Bastion, then." Sun said as he turned to Donald. "Gonna take us in for a landing?"

"You bet," the anthropomorphic duck said as he sped up a little, closing in on the new world. "Keep your guards up. This might be the most dangerous world we got to."

"Can you land somewhere NOT near the water?" Neptune said with a shudder but saw Donald was doing the exact opposite of what he requested and groaned with fear, "Oh come on!"

"We can't risk flying any closer or else we might get spotted. We'll have to sneak into the fortress. Even if Maleficent knows we're likely coming, we should still try using the element of surprise." Donald said when they landed and arrived in a large basin of ice and, for some reason, water that was going up instead of down.

"It just had to be near water, didn't it? Just HAD to be." Neptune muttered to himself, keeping as far away from the bizarre jets of water rising from the pool as possible. His display made Weiss roll her eyes and Sun facepalm. "Dude, you've GOTTA get over this." Sun said as he uncovered his face. "I-I'm working on it, okay!?" Neptune protested with embarrassment. It wasn't like he WANTED to have hydrophobia to this degree. "Can we please focus?" Weiss asked impatiently.

Thankfully Goofy made that happen. "Gawrsh, look at that!" he exclaimed, pointing toward the castle in the distance. "Uhh...that thing looked way smaller before we landed." Nora said, nervousness lacing her usually energetic voice. Ren lay a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it to calm her as he looked up at the foreboding castle. "So that's where all of this started." Blake said, her eyes focused upon their less-than welcoming destination. Jaune gulped nervously as he stared up at the castle. Though his nervousness was clear, especially to Pyrrha who gently mimicked Ren's gesture to Nora, he wasn't going to give up. None of them could after coming this far.

Sora stepped forward, his eyes gazing not in fear or even any negative emotion. Instead... "I know this place..."...it was recognition.

Everyone glanced at Sora with concern and confusion as he said that out loud. "Hmm, that's strange." Goofy commented. He certainly didn't remember them coming to this place before. So how could Sora remember it?

"Wait...Have you been here before, Sora?" Ruby asked, looking at him along with her teammates.

"No." he answered with a shake of his head. Though he didn't sound very certain about his denial as he touched his hand to his heart. "I wonder why...I feel this warmth inside, right here." It was like he was...coming home. But that couldn't be. And yet...why would he know this place?

"Aw, you're just hungry." Donald said dismissively.

"Hey, I'm serious!" Sora replied indignantly. How could Donald be so flippant about this?! Yang playfully clasped Sora on the shoulder, a wry smirk on her face as she tried to ease Sora's tension. "Well hey, at least you're not feeling Hollow, eh Sora? Eh?"

*BONK*

A pun which earned her a pebble to the head and a "Booooo." from Nora. Blake had to intervene, pulling a growling Yang back before she attempted to retaliate with a pebble of her own

Sora was growing more annoyed from the tomfoolery and said insistently, "Guys, come on! I said I'm serious!"

Before any further comments or silly actions could be said or undertaken, everyone stopped in their tracks as the sound of a deep, ferocious roar shook the air. "Whoa! What was that?" Jaune asked, trying to mask the faint tremble in his voice.

"Whatever it was, it came from up there." Blake said, pointing up to the higher part of this bizarre set of floating, icy platforms.

Weiss hummed curiously, giving an audible input. "Heartless don't make noise like that. Perhaps a Grimm? Because odds are if Maleficent is here, so is Cinder."

"Could be." Ren said, feeling that Cinder may have given more Grimm to Maleficent's cause than they thought. How she managed to get all those Grimm however...that was another question for another time.

"Well we won't figure it out standing around here. I have a feeling our answers "

Sora wasn't sure what it was but he was more determined to find his friends and rushed ahead while saying, "Let's go!"

"Wait, how are we supposed to get up there?!" Neptune said as everyone else was following him. He saw them leap over the hovering blocks of ice and was wide eyed as well as jaw dropped. "Are you kidding me?! What if we fall into the water below?!"

Jaune did exactly as Neptune predicted, screaming and falling but to everyone's surprise, he landed on it as if it was ground. He even stood up and said with mild interest, "Huh. Neat.", then tried ascending again, with Pyrrha to meet him as he did.

"Neat?!" Neptune exclaimed. "Water is already horrifying. Water that goes up and that you can apparently stand on is unnatural!" Unfortunately for the blue haired huntsman, everyone else ignored him and pressed on.

"Then you can stay behind! The less deadweight, the better!" Weiss yelled back at him bitterly. A harsh reminder that she was STILL mad at him.

"Jeez, Weiss. Even for you, that was kinda mean." Ruby commented, feeling a bit of pity for Neptune.

"Dude, you've GOTTA get over this." Sun said as he grabbed Neptune and forced him to follow everyone else. Embarrassing as this was, he wasn't about to leave his friend.

"I-I'm working on it!" Neptune groaned with displeasure. It seemed he had no choice but to try and swallow his fear.

But little did any of them know that such minor fears...well not so minor for Neptune, would only be the first thing that would shake their spirits within this dark world.