Journey Within The Heart

The sun began to set over the quiet city; creating shadows that seemed to have a mind of their own as they danced across the ground. If you were to look closely you could see hints of yellow peering back at you. Though, if you got the chance to witness this you wouldn't likely witness anything else. These shadows are vicious creature of the night that feast upon hearts from their victims. These creatures began showing up four years ago but they seemed to disappear two years ago. A teenage boy who used to wield an unusual weapon that resembled a key defended the worlds from these horrid creatures.

For two years everything seemed peaceful, even those black hooded people disappeared. Everyone thought these problems were gone and then people started to go missing. Though it wasn't a fact that they all lost their hearts it was a fairly large change that this was the case. But with that small possibility of the missing being okay was all a black haired girl need to hope her brother was fine.

The girl's brother had gone missing shortly after her world was attacked again. This caused his blonde hair best friend to go into overprotective brooding mode, as she liked to call it. The blonde was like another brother to her but she was capable of defending herself, her brother was First Class Zack after all. If it wasn't for the age difference they'd practically look like twins. She had black hair that went slightly passed her shoulders that had a slight wave to it. She had a pale complexion, which a certain hyperactive ninja liked to say the girl was somehow related to the mysterious Vincent Valentine.

One of the main differences were their eyes. Because of the mako changing Zack's eyes to a blue it was even more noticeable that her eyes were different. Sure she had the purple that Zack started with but with one difference. While with one of her eyes being purple the other was a deep red. This gave another reason for the ninja's so called theory.

Though it wasn't safe to go out this time of day in fear of the shadow creatures, that were called heartless, the girl was in a desperate search for her brother. Being close to many fighter she was efficient at many different weapons, but her favorite was her Duel Daggers. She instantly fell in love with them. They allowed her to use both her strength and speed, while a large weapon slowed her down. Even though her brother was infused with mako, along with his best friend, she was still quicker.

"Melani, what has gotten into you?" a worried voice called from behind her.

"I'm going to find him," the girl said without stopping her movement.

"Think about this logically. He's been gone for months what do you expect to find?"

"I don't know but I have to find something," she stopped walking and turned around to face the large man behind her, "What about the others? Barret they're your friends too. Everyone's slowly disappearing and soon there won't be anyone left!"

"Mel..."

"Don't tell me you don't see it Barret! Vincent even went missing a few weeks ago so you can't tell me it's not going to happen!"

"I know but there's nothing we can do. Just hope they're all okay and hope for the best. Now come back home. Everyone's worried."

Melani was about to reply until she heard movement to her left. She peered over at the alleyway and soon saw orbs of yellow. Her hands clenched her daggers and waited until they moved toward her. When they didn't she looked at Barret, who was tense.

"Barret?"

"I'm going to make sure Marlene is okay. Don't do anything stupid."

"Sure, sure whatever you say," she muttered shooing him off.

Once he left she turned to face the alleyway and the yellow orbs were gone. Clenching her weapons she walked in that direction. When she heard a crash she rand down the alley and turned the corner. What she saw completely shocked her. There was this duck looking thing dressed in blue that appeared to be using magic against a few heartless. There was also, what she assumed to be, a dog thing leaning over a boy who was sitting on the ground with his back against the wall. From what Melani could see he looked unconscious.

"Hurry up Goofy!" the duck yelled.

"I'm a hurrying!" the dog, that she assumed was Goofy, said as he poured some kind of liquid in the boy's mouth.

Melani had no idea who those strangers were but it looked like they needed help as more heartless appeared. She ran over and sliced a few before they knew what was coming. When they disappeared Melani stopped in front of the strangers, who all were now standing in fighting stances. She lowered her weapons and put them in their right place in a halter against her left hip.

"We need to leave before more show up, follow me," Melani told them and began walking to what used to be Zack's and her home. They followed her without saying a word.

As she opened the door to the house and walked inside a pain washed over her. She hadn't been there very often since the disappearance because memories of him would flood her mind and it hurt. Holding back tears she offered her guests a place to sit and some water.

"I've never see any of you around here before so I'm guessing you're not from here. why are you here?"

"Two reasons actually," the boy said. "For starters your world is full of heartless, which we are here to get rid of."

"How do you plan on doing that?"

"Find the world's keyhole and seal it."

"Wait... keyhole? Does that mean you're the keyblade master?"

"Yeah, how'd you know that?"

"A friend of mine, who happened to disappear a few weeks ago, like most of the others," Melani noticed the looks her strange guests gave each other and how they instantly smiled.

"Do you happen to be Melani Fair?"

"Yeah, but how did you know that?" "That's actually the other reason we're here. We know some of your friends."

"Cloud sent us to find you," the duck said.

"Cloud! As in tall spiky haired blonde with sparkling blue eyes?" Melani could hardly contain her excitement.

"That'd be him."

"Thank Gaia he's okay."

"Once he began meeting up with people from here he bean to hope this world wasn't destroyed."

"Who else is with him?" Melani's hope began to grow that her brother was alright.

"Well there is Yuffie, Aerith, Cid, and Tifa," the Keyblade master began.

"Oh and this rather creepy guy showed up a few weeks ago," Goofy added.

"Goofy!" the two others yelled at their companion.

"Creepy? By any chance did he have long black hair, a golden claw, a red cape, and was extremely pale?"

"Yeah, I think his name's Vincent," the boy said.

"I'm so glad he's okay."

"He's also part of the reason we came to find you. Cloud mentioned something about a promise to your brother after they talked to each other."

"Does he know where my brother is?"

"Not sure, he didn't say much else besides to make sure you were okay. By the looks of it I think you can handle yourself."

"Will you please take me to him Keyblade Master?" Melani pleaded.

"You can call me Sora and we were going to stop there anyway so I wouldn't see a problem in that."

"Do we really have room in the Gummyship?" the duck asked.

"Gummyship?"

"It's how we get from world to world," Sora explained, "and I'm sure it'll be fine."

"Oh thank you so much! This means the world to me," Melani said she hugged Sora.

"Uh... no problem?"

Melani let go and practically skipped to the door, "Let's go find the keyhole so we can leave."

Sora nodded and they all began to leave the house out into the empty streets. They walked around a few minutes, having no idea where to look for the world's keyhole. Melani began fiddling with a necklace in the shape of a strange symbol while she thought of possibilities. The silver pendent shining in the dimming sunlight; catching Sora's attention.

"That's a nice necklace."

"Yeah, Aerith gave it to me when I was little. She said it would be the key to saving our world one day. Wait... could this be...?"

"She's been wearing it the whole time!" the duck quaked.

"Gawrsh that's what you call lucky," Goofy said.

Melani smiled and handed Sora the necklace. As he held it out in front of him it began to float. A strange key shaped weapon appeared in his hand and then there was a bright light as he pointed the keyblade at the necklace. Melani moved her arm over her eyes to shield them from the light. When the light died down she moved her arm and saw Sora standing in front of her with her necklace.

"Here," Sora said handing Melani the necklace, who put it back around her neck.

"Can we go now?" Melani asked.

"Yeah and we better hurry before it gets too dark," Sora said.

Melani followed Sora towards what she guessed was where they left their gummyship. She could hardly contain her excitement as they reached the ship. She was surprised when she walked onto it to see multiple wooden barrels. She took a seat while looking at them oddly.

"Um... what's in the barrels?" Melani asked.

"Chocolate chip cookies. They were a gift while in Agrabah," Sora explained.

"Oh okay. Um, hey Sora?"

"Yeah?" he asked as he sat down and Goofy started the ship.

"Where exactly are we going?"

"Radiant Garden. You should've seen it before everyone started fixing it up. It looks like a completely different place. I'm sure you'll like it, it's beautiful."

"Looking forward to it," Melani said happily.

She wasn't positive on what she was going to do when she saw everyone again but she did know one thing for sure. No matter what happened while she was there she was going to search for Zack. She'd find her brother at whatever cost, even if it killed her.