I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters.

Found

Tyler looked around as soon as the light faded, finding himself standing inside a house with books cluttering all of the walls and randomly across the floor. In front of him, Leon was holding his gunblade to his throat. To Tyler's right, Lightning was being held in a choke hold now by a woman with waist-length black hair, a black vest that left a few inches of her midriff exposed before her black apron skirt, which reached to just above her knees, a pair of black shorts reaching out from under them, a long black cloth hung almost to the ground behind her, and she had on a pair of black gloves and shoes. To the left, Noel was holding his sword straight out in front of himself, the edge held to Cloud's throat, Cloud's own sword held to Noel's. Behind Tyler, Fang and Vanille were both standing with their hands raised and Fang wore an amused smile. A young girl, probably a couple years younger than them was standing behind them with a shuriken that had arms each about a food long with the center a grip, held so that the shuriken had a blade under each of their chins. The girl had a black cloth wrapped around her forehead like a headband and tied in the back, the ends falling behind her, an open black midriff vest over a black midriff shirt with grey flower designs on it, a pair of brown short shorts with a black cloth hanging only slightly longer than them on her right side, a black gauntlet-like sleeve on her left hand and forearm with her fingers extending out of it, a white armband around her right wrist, and black stockings reaching up over he knees, extending out of the top of tan converse boots that reached to just under her knees.

"Oh, it's you," Leon said, lowering his sword, the others doing the same.

"Nice to see you again too," Tyler said. "What's going on?"

"The heartless are finally making their move," Leon said. "They're on their way here. They'll be here within a couple hours."

"I guess we have good timing," Tyler said.

"Better than you think," Leon said.

"What do you mean?" Tyler asked.

Leon motioned for them to follow and walked out of the house. Tyler looked to Lightning, who shrugged, and they all walked after him. After about four minutes, they found a building where a glowing barrier was coating the walls. Leon held out a hand, resting it against the barrier and it flashed, fading. Then, he pulled the door open and stepped out of the way. Tyler and Lightning stepped through and froze.

"Tyler!" Alice cried out, running forward, Tyler meeting her halfway, instantly scooping her up into a hug and spinning.

"Alice!" Tyler smiled. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

"The pretty lady saved me," Alice said, pointing to the other person in the room, who Lightning was practically crushing to death in a hug, both sisters sobbing.

Serah really did look a lot like Lightning. She had the same pink hair, hers in a ponytail on the left side of her head, a red choker, a white tube top with a pink and white skirt, the skirt having a section that extended up her front to just below her breasts, red straps reaching around her back from its sides, holding it in place, and a pair of straps reaching from the middle of the back over her shoulders then down into her tube top. The skirt was white on the sides and barely reached a third of the way down her thighs, then there was a short gap before her pink thigh-high stockings. She had a pair of lighter pink shoes, and a pair of grey gloves with pink cloth reaching out from under them. Floating in the air behind her was a creature with a pudgy white body, stumpy white arms and legs that looked more like spikes than limbs, a bulbous white head with puffed out cheeks and tiny, pointed, cat-like ears on the top, a thin purple staff that was about as tall as he was in his right had and about as big around as half of Tyler's pinky, and that had an ornate clock on the top of it with a glowing pink gemstone on the top of the clock, a larger matching one on the end of an apparently bendable antenna on the center of the top of the creature's head, a pair of purple bat-like wings about the same length as the creature's arms and legs, and a bulbous, clown-like red nose.

Serah

"I thought I had lost you," Lightning said after a long while, pulling back and wiping her eyes.

"I thought so too," Serah said. "Until Mog found me." She gestured at the floating white thing. "He turned himself into a bow-sword so I could fight the Heartless, then guided me out of the darkness. After a little while, I found Alice being chased by Heartless and saved her."

"So I see," Lightning smiled, just as Noel stepped into the room and stopped, eyes wide.

"Serah," he breathed, voice weak but filled with awe and joy.

"Noel!" Serah cheered, sprinting to him and flinging her arms around him, Noel managing to catch her, also beginning to cry.

Tyler walked over to Lightning and shifted Alice so that he could hug Lightning, who happily accepted.

"I...I thought...you were..." Noel struggled to speak.

"It's alright," Serah smiled. "I'm here. I'm fine. You found me."

Noel tried to speak but his voice failed and he lowered his head, struggling to get a grip. Serah smiled, lifting his head.

"I don't blame you for anything," Serah said. "You know that, right? You always blame yourself when bad things happen, but nothing that happened that day was your fault."

"I should have fought harder," Noel said.

"You couldn't have changed anything," Serah said. "You would have just died too."

"I could have saved Snow," Noel said. "He was wounded. He shouldn't have been allowed to keep fighting."

"Noel," Serah said, sadness and sympathy dripping from her voice as tears filled her eyes. "Please don't blame yourself. Snow made his choice. And because you survived, we can be together again now."

Noel nodded and hugged Serah again, Serah smiling and hugging him back before standing and pulling him up.

"Where's Sazh?" Serah asked.

"He stayed back on the ship," Fang said. "We could only transport five at one time, so he decided to stay back."

Serah nodded. "So, now what?"

"We're going to help defend Hollow Bastion from the Heartless," Tyler said. "You two should stay on the ship where it's safe."

"I'm not running away anymore," Serah said. "I can defend myself, now. Besides, I have all of you to look after me, right?"

"Are you sure?" Lightning asked.

Serah nodded and Lightning sighed. "Alright. But Alice needs to go to the ship."

"I agree," Tyler nodded. "Alice, there's going to be a really bright light, and you're going to be somewhere else. There's going to be a friend of mine there named Sazh. Can you tell him I asked him to look after you for me?"

Alice nodded, smiling.

"That's my brave little girl," Tyler smiled, rubbing his hand over her hair to mess it up before Sazh teleported her to the ship. "Okay. Serah, stick with Noel for the battle. That way we'll have even teams."

Serah nodded, holding out her hand. "It's nice to meet you."

"Same," Tyler smiled. "I'm Tyler. I've heard a lot about you."

Serah smiled and nodded. "Don't let my sister get hurt, alright?"

"Not on my life," Tyler nodded.

Serah beamed and hugged him, Tyler blinking in surprise. "For the record, I think she made a good choice."

Then, she walked out the door and Tyler blinked, looking to Lightning, who was blushing. He grinned, shaking his head and they followed her out of the house, finding Leon's group waiting.

"Alright," Tyler said. "Let's get going, shall we?"

Leon nodded and they turned, leaving the building behind, Leon leading them to a sort of fort, then through it and up a long staircase to the top of a wall. Once there, they stopped, understanding their job easy enough and spreading along the wall as lookouts. Leon left again, taking the rest of his group with him and Tyler leaned against the wall, sighing.

"Shouldn't be too long," Lightning said.

"True," Tyler nodded. "Still, a couple hours is a long time to just sit around. I kind of wish I had a chair."

Lightning hopped up, sitting on the edge of the wall and Tyler chuckled, sitting beside her.

"That works too," Tyler nodded.

Lightning leaned on his shoulder, smiling, and he wrapped his arms around her, sharing the smile. "We finally found them."

"I told you Serah escaped and rescued Alice," Tyler said.

Lightning smiled, nodding. "I guess you were right. I owe you a reward."

"Repay me when we get through this safely," Tyler said.

Lightning nodded and they settled in to wait, the others all doing the same.

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