Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction / Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction ❯ Kingdom Hearts: The Legend Returns ❯ The Arrival ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
Before Reading: Even though 200 years passed, time in all worlds flow differently, so for example all the Disney-related worlds and Traverse Town, only a few months to a year has passed. It is so I can keep all the non-playable characters and use them in the story. There are Final Fantasy-related worlds now, since I will use them for my story plot. Years have passed on Destiny Island, Twilight Town, Radiant Garden (all the characters moved out into their original Final Fantasy/Disney worlds), and worlds I created for the plot, which I called them Outer Worlds. Just so the inhabitants in those worlds would forget that a Keyblade even existed. Sorry for the confusion.

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Author's Notes: Most of the characters created are inspired by or made by the people who I worked with in a writing Roleplay, so credits to them.

Disclaimer: How can I be the owner? I only write the fanfics. Again, I am not the rightful owners of some of the original characters in the story.

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Chapter 1: The Arrival

Selene thought that this week couldn't get any more bizarre as it was, when she found a young boy, around the age of fourteen or fifteen, dropping from the sky of a not-so-lively town in the entrance of an alleyway.

Ever since her surprised immediate departure from home, she was transported into a desolate castle, with the inner structures slightly dismantled. Eventually, she found these dark-figured monsters chasing her; the same ones she first discovered invading her world. Then, as she was cornered, a weapon miraculously materialized in her hand and she quickly acted in her desperation to survive, barely fighting the intruders off, as she wasn't so experienced. However, her small recollection of defending herself was key to overcoming that obstacle, in addition to the strangely-shaped stick...

Unlike the Legends she heard from her mother, her weapon was shaped differently from a huge cabinet key. As the throat of the sword, there was a jagged double helix overlapping each other a bit, each colored cerulean and silver. The silver part was somewhat straighter than the cerulean part, and the top portion was the cerulean crescent moon, where a silver star encloses the enclave of it, with curled teeth shapes that also covers a huge portion of the moon. The black hilt has sapphire jewels on each end, including a circular, wing-looking cross guard that connects to the side of the gems. Finally, at the end of the pommel, there is a metal piece connected to the chain with the same moon and star, resembling the tip.

Aside from its irregularity and how it appeared, she faintly heard a gruffy male's voice calling out something about following through her "destiny." That word, she hated it; that same fragmented speech she heard, when she drifted into darkness coincidentally at the time when a huge shadowed monster attacked her city-like world, Zanarkand.

She couldn't accept the fate she was given, but she knew and realized what she was presented -- a Keyblade, a legend that was told to children as their bedtime story, to let them rest easy. She almost remembered that Epic tale of a boy who saved the countless, existing worlds, but legends are legends, right? In her denial, she previously tried to toss the weapon away through an arched window of the castle, but it poofed right back into her hand, like a magnet.

To conclude her eventful adventure, a day later, a shimmering light from her weapon guided her to a large room in shambles, which appeared to be a library. Half the books had fallen from the tall bookcases and some of them were tattered and overturned in numerous piles. She knew the place was overruned by those things, and it looked like the vicinity had taken the most impact. Hastily, she thought of getting out, but she noticed, at the corner of her eye, a book floated out amongst a pile and magically opened in a blinding glow, forcing her peripherals to shut and going into a somewhat unconscious state. It was almost apparent that her body was drifting afloat to somewhere and the ominous voice was more audible than before, repeating the same phrase, as if it was beckoning her not to forget her mission.

"You must find and join with the Chosen One; it is your destiny."

And there she was gaping at the resting male with a huge smile plastered on his face, his posture faced up to the direction of the eternal night sky, and his right hand on his stomach.

Pausing for a while, she decided to quietly advance towards him and consecutively wondered if she should wake him up from that state. She crouched down for a closer inspection of his face and felt a calming, familiar aura that made her unknowingly mouth out, "Keybearer," with a spaced out expression. Reality set back into her, after that moment, and she realized she had to wake the kid up. She reluctantly took her right hand up and lightly slapped the kid on his cheeks a few times, telling him in a conversational volume, "Hey, wake up, kid." To her dismay, there was no response from the male red-head who was still in his deep sleep. She tried again, now gripping his shoulders, but she let go and stood up in surprise, when the stranger started moving, curling himself up to stop the shivering and groaned groggily, "Geez.. It's cold."

"Where is it...?" he muttered, as his arms extended down to reach for a blanket which took him thirty seconds to realize it was nonexistent at that point. He sat up, scratching his somewhat messy (anime) spiky hair then yawning out loud and stretching his arms with one eye having a hard time keeping awake. His eyes blurred, as he rubbed his eyes; he really didn't want to wake up, since his head pounded, as if he was having a hangover that he never had before. His right hand grasped onto the side of his forehead, while he partly expressed an "agh" and stopped halfway to notice someone looming over him. Of course, the immediate reaction was to look up, as he was laughing inwardly to himself for being slow and wondering how long this figure stood there. Then, he got up and brushed the dust off his knee-length, dark gray pants.

Selene watched him even though it was rude, but the oblivious boy seemed busy with his waking ritual. She honestly had no idea if she should have greeted him and instead timed how long it would take him to notice. And it was all about three minutes.

Plastered with a goofy smile, the first thing that came to mind was what he spouted as a greeting: "Hey, you must be my dream girl. Do you know where we are?" with his right hand scuffling the back of his hair in embarrassment, a habit of his. When he first saw the peculiar town, it was not ridiculous to him to think this was all a dream, even the days, when strange events first occurred in his world. In conclusion, all of that was a fantasy -- although some of it albeit scary -- since the last thing he remembered was sleeping in his very own bed and waking up here afterwards. At least that's what he last recalled, even with all the events that were all jumbled up, including dreams and reality, to the point where his brain started aching. So he discontinued to think about it and go along with the dream, as easy as it was.

All the while, the brunette stood there dumbfounded by his "compliment," or his way of flirting with girls. Either way, she took a moment to compose herself and smiled meekly at him. "Well, I'm not quite sure," she responded, placing her hand on her side, "since I'm not from around here. We could always ask around."

"That sounds good, ah, but do you think we can get some grub around here?" the young male questioned, pointing his finger up momentarily, with his curious eyes excavating the area, "I'm really starving!" This whole area appeared to be a marketplace with all these shop signs up. And strangely for a dream, he shouldn't even be feeling hungry. Without hearing a response from the female, on his own, he decided to venture towards the central area of the First District to get a better look around the place and down towards the Second District.

"I guess so.." Selene replied, with her voice drifting, as her gray-blue orbs followed the boy to where he was going and wondered what he was doing. Now, this boy definitely had the attention span of a goldfish, but maybe, that didn't matter, since it was sort of no concern to her of what the boy was doing and she didn't exactly get a name out of him in the beginning.

The first thing he took note of was a crowd of people stampeding from the Second District and hearing them scream out loud about "Heart"-something or other. "The Heartless are coming!" he heard the frightened mobs yell. He blinked perplexedly at them and the crowd got closer, shoving and pushing into the bewildered boy, who tried to protest, forcing his way out, "Hey, wait. Agh, at least let me - stop shoving! I just wanna see what's going on!" With all the bumps and bruises he gained, he one-foot hopped out of the masses and regained his momentum.

Immediately, the young female turned towards the commotion and saw that the inhabitants were hastily entering into any and all buildings, in terror of the Heartless who stood in a group surrounding the intrigued lad, blatantly having no clue to what they are. Before she ran over, Selene thought about whether or not to summon her Keyblade, so as she ran there, she grabbed a store sign and swung through, breaking the ring of Heartless. "Hey you, are you okay?" she questioned, looking at the amused male. He had no idea what had happened behind him, but all these Heartless with their blank yellow eyes looked... so cute! All logic went out of the window for this one; instead of answering, he spontaneously hugged one of the Heartless, rubbing his cheek against its face and petting its head.

Now, Selene gave off another surprised look and soon placed her hand on her forehead, shaking her head, at the scene, however, the Heartless responded by squirming and eventually scratching his arm. He quickly let go of the Heartless and yelped out a "ow!" Then he chastised the black creature, kicking him out of the inner circle like a soccer ball, "That's not.. very nice!" Even through the thought of it all being a dream, he turned towards the giggling girl, concerned for her, and pointed out, "Oh, hey, these guys don't seem to be friendly. You should run onto shelter, like the people here." Stupidly going into his fighting stance, he grabbed a two-foot stick laying nearby, thinking it would transform into something in this dream, and said, "I'm gonna fight them off."

As soon as the auburn hair girl stopped laughing, she managed to say, struggling a little, "I really don't advise that. I mean these things are really dangerous, and a weapon like that won't suffice." With a shimmer of light, her Keyblade appeared in her right hand; honestly, she really didn't want to resort to this, but since she got caught up with the situation, she had no choice. Before the Heartless lunged towards the red-head, she hastily ran past him and swiped at the first eliminated Heartless. "By the way, my name is Selene, not 'dream girl', and yours?"

The boy blinked at the weirdly shaped stick-weapon-thing that appeared out of no where and just now dissolved the black blob, but his attention was taken away from her query to which he replied cheerfully, "Avalon, that's my name!" His eyes stared back at the moon and star blade, and he thought to himself, How the heck does that magical-looking stick kill those thing? Oh, those poor black kitties... Whatever the reason may be, he expected something out of the ordinary, like that, was bound to happen; it was a dream, after all.

With introductions said and done, Selene had to focus on the present predicament, where all the basic dusk creatures circled the pair, numbering up to at least ten. She quickly took her stance, holding her weapon horizontally with her right hand grasping on the hilt and her other hand -- palm out -- touching the teeth portion, which allowed her to easily concentrate. Please, let this work, she prayed, gathering all her magical energy into the Keyblade. She immediately held up the weapon up the air, when she felt it was enough, and shouted, "Stop!" The shapes of broken-hand clocks burst out of the tip of the weapon, like a volcano, the spell hitting each and every one of the Heartless. Best at running, the agile female started at the one in front of her who was closer and about to jump at her. She then proceed to wipe them out one by one with one easy strike, knowing how weak-will they were, before her spell wore out.

Like the "key"-blade, that the tool was referred to, it unlocked her potential to use magic. It came in handy once she got the hang of it, but it was something she used, when there were numerous amounts of enemies.

Avalon gaped at the girl, who moved almost like lightning, and was really impressed at how she fought, but it still baffled him at how the crooked pole of a weapon destroyed these monsters, instead of using a normal sword. "I gotta say this dream is really getting interesting," he mumbled, distantly, scratching his head, and walked towards the female who was lightly smiling at him. Poking at the stick curiously and looking closer at it, he questioned, as his brow furrowed, "So what the heck is this thing? And those black critters?"

"That, my friend, is a Keyblade, a legendary weapon. There were only a few people back then who can wield that," a male voice intruded from behind them, "It's quite surprising that this young lady has one, since rumors say it doesn't exist anymore." They both turned towards the male with a cowboy hat and long brown hair in a ponytail with a grin on his face and a shotgun hoisted up on his shoulder. "Also, these critters are called Heartless," he continued, walking towards them and gazing mostly at the auburn hair girl, "I was really impressed at the show you put. So where are you from? Actually, how rude of me. Allow me to introduce myself, the name's Irvine Kinneas." He ended that statement with a flirty wink at the same time moving his hat up off his head and bowing slightly to the female.

"My name is Selene," the brunette smiled as friendly as she could, even though it was awkward how he acquainted himself, while Avalon raised a brow at the newcomer, from his response and remarks towards the uncomfortable girl. Whatever they were named, he was curious to why the Key-thing was such an exalted weapon and why these Heartless exist and attack people.

Before Avalon could say anything, another unknown voice appeared, saying with a surprised tone, "Irvine, what are you doing here? Didn't you say you were going back to Balamb Gardens!" This time the figure was a young black-haired female with a bandana on her forehead.

Irvine faced her, smiled nervously, and responded with a heh, "Well, uhh, Yuffie, I missed my ride actually, you see."

"I bet you're lying!" the one proclaimed Yuffie responded, giggling and pointing at him, "You made Selphie jealous again, right?"

Irvine placed his unoccupied right hand on his hip and laughed as well, "No way, I wouldn't do that to my precious Selphie!"

"Uh-huh, sure." Yuffie eyed at him suspiciously and then averted her gaze to the two confused bystanders, smiling at them. "I'm Yuffie. Oh, but we should probably go to the inn. It's dangerous to be around here for too long," she suggested with a grin.

"Ah, you're completely right," the gunner nodded his head in approval.

As the witness, Avalon didn't want to intrude in their squabble, but he was forced to listen, and a lot of it confused him. Before that, he had so many questions to what is happening in his dream, even if the dream people would ridicule him for saying it's a dream; he had no shame in asking. To him, everything that had happen was unbelievable anyways. "Before we go, will we get some answers, if we do follow you? I have completely no idea what's going on and I'm sure I don't play in any part of this, since I don't have a Key-whatever-you-call-it," the red-head queried, scratching his head.

"Keyblade," the ninja corrected him, and in response, Avalon shrugged shortly.

Both Yuffie and Irvine obliged and they strode over to the area near the obvious accessory shop, while the outsiders of the town stated their names. Selene quietly followed them, knowing she could trust these friendly folks, but she wasn't as interested to what the boy wanted to know, since she knew what she didn't want to know. They sat at the lobby where the couches were and Irvine and Yuffie took turns explaining what the Heartless and Keyblades were. Avalon took their explanation as a bed time story, despite not being tired, but he learned that Keyblades are the only weapons to free the hearts from Heartless and still, he found it astonishing and amusing at the same time.

I hope, if I wake up from this dream, I'll remember it...

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Next Character: A Challenger Appears! A lad, with undying will, who is eager to face up to any obstacles. Adventurous, he leaves the sheltered castle and sets out to seek the other Keywielders. Who is he and what are his intention? Find out on the next chapter. :P

Tidbits About Avalon: Age 15, an optimistic boy with a big heart and has a sense of no ill-intentions towards others; because of that, he will inherit the Keyblade of Light, and use it to find his friends... after he realizes that he is actually not dreaming, sooner or later...
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