→ APPLICATION - realityshifted
Player Name: Maggie
Player LJ: sykkea
Email and/or AIM: TharianDream
Timezone: US/Central
Character: Riku
Series: Kingdom Hearts
Deviance: 2 (?) -- A steampunk AU! Canon events happen pretty much by the book (except for some minor differences), but the whole thing takes place in one world, split up into floating landmasses/islands that you can only travel between by airship or magic, due to the crazy, crazy storms that line the skies.
Age: 16
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Canon Used: All of the games: Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days...
Appearance: Seriously, just search google images for "Kingdom Hearts Riku". You get all kinds of stuff.
http://gamesnet.vo.llnwd.net/o1/gamestar/objects/244443_main.jpg
http://www.finalfantasyworld.co.uk/khextreme/kh2/images/artwork/KH2_Artwork_BFU.jpg
Just... don't pay attention to the outfits. ♥ Being from a steampunk AU means I get to have all sorts of fun coming up with steampunky outfits for him to be wearing. Mostly, knowing his tastes, these outfits will be simple enough - black pants, white shirt, grey vest... (maybe I can talk him into a snazzy top hat. Hmm~~)
Psychology:
Riku is typically the calm, cool and collected type, especially in the beginning. This by no means implies that he's content to just let things be. With an insatiable curiosity and a willingness to push himself beyond his own limits, Riku often gets himself (or in some cases, the whole damn island) in trouble. Combine that with wanderlust, and Riku is not one to stay confined on a pretty little island for very long, no matter how peaceful it may be...
He's also very competitive, especially with Sora, which probably stemmed from his jealousy of him. It takes the entirety of the first game and his being freed from the clutches of Xehanort's Heartless for him to realize his shortcomings and begin to heal. He even goes as far as accepting his darkness and learning to use it/live with it.
That doesn't mean he doesn't still have a guilt complex about a mile wide. If he screws up, he's more than likely to beat himself up about it for way longer than is strictly necessary. In many cases, regret and the desire to make amends can be a driving force for Riku.
Through everything he's had to face, he has matured greatly. He is a very loyal and protective friend, going the extra mile to do whatever is in his power to keep those he loves safe even when he has to do so in secret.
Other Skills/Abilities:
Combat-wise, Riku knows his way around a sword/keyblade. He can also manipulate the element of darkness: he has spells like "dark firaga" (a ball of darkness flung at the enemy, essentially) and can create a shield out of dark energy in much the same way.
That aside, Riku also possesses the ability to detect the "smell" of darkness in people. It's more like a sensory thing, though there's a canon comment he makes about how similar someone smells to another based on the amount of darkness in their hearts. It doesn't mean he'll know what someone's done to gain that scent of darkness on them, but he'll know it's there and they can't hide it. He doesn't often let on that he has this ability, though, and will mostly keep his observations on the matter to himself (which may or may not stem from guilt, silly boy)
Other Weaknesses:
Most of his weaknesses are psychological, not physical. However, despite the fact that he is pretty much crazy powerful and talented (he's a boss character, okay?), he's still a squishy human that will bleed if you poke him or bleed to death if you poke him a helluva lot.
History:
It began on an island chain, with three curious children. Sora, Riku and Kairi grew up here, spending their days playing on the beach and generally doing what children do. It just so happened that, for whatever reason, those simple times just weren't enough for Riku.
Riku was haunted by an image from his dreams: a door that led somewhere beyond. His curiosity bled into reality, and he eventually became insistent - no, obsessed - with finding out what lies beyond the horizon, beyond where the water empties into the world below at the end of the islands, beyond even the dark, horrible storms that separated the islands from... well, whatever was on the other side. He had to see it. And so, they built a tiny little airboat, one that they believed could take them there...
They never got the chance to try their airboat. The night they finished, the bordering storms seemed to enclose on the islands and cover everything in a dark, horrible mist. Riku went to investigate, and somehow, was given the power to part the storms: the Keyblade. Unfortunately, he also gave into the darkness, seeing it as his ticket to finally leaving the islands. As the island began to sink into the mist below, engulfed by the darkness and swarmed by creatures called the Heartless, Riku vanished, and the Keyblade was lost to him.
He awoke away from his friends in a place he didn't recognize: another world, a different floating landmass than the islands he'd grown up on. He was found by a woman who called herself Maleficent, and she offered him shelter, protection, and power... She also began to twist his thoughts to her advantage, trying to turn the boy against his friends. She convinced him that Sora easily replaced him with new friends, and that Sora would never be able to save Kairi. While Riku wasa bit suspicious of her, he ultimately sided with her, unsure why it was that Sora seemed so nonchalant about everything after all.
While Riku eventually found Kairi's body, he still could't find her heart. So he stayed with Maleficent, believing that by staying near to her, he would have a much better chance of saving her than Sora would just traipsing about, world to world. She gave him him power, just as she said she would, but with each new gift his heart was pulled even further into darkness.
Confused yet? It's about to get weirder, and it's not going to slow down.
Riku confronted Sora in a place called the Hollow Bastion, but he was no longer himself - possessed by a dark force, a voice... someone else, who called himself Ansem. He wielded a new Keyblade... a dark one, with the ability to directly unlock people's hearts. He used it to strike down Maleficent, and when Sora took her down, he came for Ansem next. Though Ansem failed to bring Sora down, Sora struck himself, unlocking Kairi's heart in the process. With Sora out of the picture and Kairi a full person once more, Ansem turned his attention on Kairi, but Riku used every last bit of strength he still had to hold Ansem off and told Kairi to run. She did. This began an internal struggle between Riku and Ansem, which Riku eventually lost. Ansem took full control over his body.
It wasn't until the "end" that Riku was restored, inside of the Realm of Light, behind a door that lay at the bottom of the mist-covered surface of the planet. Thousands of Heartless began to swarm, ready to overtake this realm, but Riku and King Mickey held them off as well as they could. Riku and Sora, aware that the door needed to close, did so - Sora in the the darkness, and Riku stuck in the light. Riku's final words to his friend were, "Take care of her." Kairi.
Riku awoke in a place called Castle Oblivion, all the way in the lowest basement level, surrounded in darkness and feeling lost. He heard a voice, who presented with a choice: to sleep here, to forget everything and to forget about the light... or to press onward and see the truth. Riku very easily decided to go after the truth, the answers... because it was probably "a boring place to take a nap anyway."
His journey through Castle Oblivion had him confront people, places and events from his memories. He eventually came upon Ansem, who mocked and challenged him. Mickey appeared long enough to help defeat him, but Ansem once again unlocked the darkness in Riku's heart before taking his leave. Riku refused to rely on his darkness and, stubbornly, pressed onward.
Riku fought bravely, even when confronted with a replica of himself (crafted by Zexion - a member of The Order), determined to defeat the darkness inside of him and become strong enough to find and protect his friends once again. However, when he is defeated by Zexion, the light overtook him and he began to feel himself slipping away... until he heard Kairi calling to him, telling him that the light is no match for him, but more importantly, neither is the darkness. He reawakened his dark powers, embraced the magic of the mist, and defeated Zexion. He finally accepted that these powers were not evil, and were a part of himself that he could no longer deny, and instead he chose to embrace them and use them to his advantage.
Accepting his control over darkness and mist magic, however, came with a consequence. Riku began to suffer from a sort of day-blindness - spending too long in the light made him completely unable to see anything at all. He accepted this, hoping to fix it later. Surely there would be a solution, even a temporary one. But for the moment, he had bigger worries.
He found Naminé in Castle Oblivion, a clone of Kairi that held no darkness, protecting Sora in a sort of sleep chamber. Riku commented that they were very similar, but also called her out on appearing to him before in the form of Kairi. She simply smiled. She gave him a choice once again: sleep, suppress his darkness and forget, or to continue onward. Riku, determined to overcome on his own, turned her down. Naminé was glad to hear it, and wished him well before turning her attention back to watching over the sleeping Sora.
Riku called Ansem forward from within himself. Ansem began to mock him, calling him a coward who was afraid of the dark. Riku denied this, saying he wasn't afraid of anything, he just couldn't stand Ansem's "foul stench". Riku defeated him, but not before Ansem vowed to return, as a part of him still resided within him.
A man was waiting for both Mickey and him outside of Castle Oblivion, and Riku recognized him as the voice that was following him ever since he awoke. The man, DiZ, demanded another choice from Riku: to choose between light and darkness, and which road he will take. Riku, with a smirk, answered that he would take neither - he would take the path in the middle, the road to the dawn.
Riku and Mickey eventually parted once they were away from the castle, as Riku realized he still could not fully get rid of Ansem and knew that something had to be done about it. Mickey conceded. His parting gift was a blindfold, to help with Riku's struggle with his day-blindness. With that, Riku made his way to a world called Twilight Town, to aid DiZ in whatever he was up to...
Canon Point: The equivalent of the end of Chain of Memories.
Reality Description:
It's pretty stereotypically steampunk, especially as far as technology is concerned. Magic exists, in basic fire/ice/thunder/air ways.
People live on floating landmasses, all of which are cut off from one another due to violent, impassable storms that line the skies and block all passage. It's been this way for hundreds of years - most don't even think of traveling to other lands except as pipe dreams and passing fancies that they know they could never reach. Beneath the landmasses, the surface is covered in a thick mist. It's thought that the ground and the ocean are here, but the truth is... every city that was ever taken by the Heartless sunk beneath this mist. Plenty of nasty creatures and monsters lurk here. No one goes there.
So yes, it is possible to fall off the end of a world here. And more than likely, no one will ever hear from you again.
Technology is at the same level as the Industrial Age in most places, in keeping with the steampunk theme. There is also magic, limited to fire, ice, thunder and air, mostly. It's possible to learn to control "mist magic," but it's a very forbidden art and typically only used by the Heartless, the Soulless, or the incredibly evil. (Or Riku, due to his time fighting for the wrong people.)
The easiest way to tell how this 'verse is different from that of the original Kingdom Hearts is to list, honestly, so I'm just going to do a sort of word-drop and comparison here:
*Storms - dark, horrible, impassable currents of wind, rain and other nasty weather-like things that divide the worlds.
*Mist - the actual surface of the planet is covered with it. It's impossible to see what's really down there on the surface, but when a world falls victim to the heartless, it sinks into the mist and is lost.
*Worlds - called "worlds", but really just separate landmasses all on the same planet. These landmasses are separated by the storms and are all cut off from one another. (PS: Monstro? The gigantic whale? Is a flying air whale. Kickass, yes?)
*Heartless - The heartless are creatures that, well, lack a heart - the center of magic, power, and... essentially being. They're born from the mist, and when the mist takes over a world, they steal (and likely consume) the hearts of others and that world sinks into the mist below.
*Keyblades - weapons, swords in the shape of keys. They contain powerful magic, perhaps even some mechanical cogworks, and are from a mysterious source of magic that seems to have very close ties to the mist and the sorts of phenomenon that normal people know of only through legends and myths.
*Kingdom Hearts - a door that, if unlocked, could unseal the mist from its depths and cause it to flood the entire world. Many different factions want to find Kingdom Hearts for various reasons.
*Soulless - this world's version of the canon Nobodies. These people are actually failed experiments; someone attempted to create full soldiers with the magic of the mist. The weaker turned into horrible monsters once consumed by mist magic, but the stronger became...
*The Order/The Thirteenth Order - guess who? Organization XIII. They're more complicated in this world, however. The members of The Thirteenth Order are actually clones of their original selves, infused with mist magic that takes the form of a particular elemental "alignment" that varies from person to person. They have their own hearts and memories as well as the memories and experiences of their oringinals. Because of this, yeah, they're kind of mentally unstable (understandably so!). They want to use the weilders of the keyblades, and through them, they hope to gain control over the mist and... well, everything else.
Other things to note:
*The gummi ship "Highwind" has been replaced by an armored zeppelin with the same name. It's capable of crossing the storms between the worlds by using the paths created by the mist.
*Digital Twilight Town never existed - steampunk technology isn't that awesome, sorry. Instead, DiZ watches over Sora while he sleeps to regain his memories, and when Roxas is brought to him, he's used to awaken Sora. He... is then tossed in a prison cell and forgotten about, poor kid. ~~Someone~~ eventually saves him, though... ♥
*Riku's blindfold isn't to keep him from looking like Ansem (in fact, that's getting cut out entirely) - he actually developed a type of day-blindness from messing around with mist magic in his attempts to grow stronger.
Important people include:
*Sora - The hero of the keyblade, and Riku's best friend. He travels the worlds in an attempt to fight off the Heartless.
*Kairi - Riku's other best friend, and a Princess of Heart - one of seven princesses that are not at all corrupted by darkness or the mist that it comes from.
*Roxas - Sora's other half, a Soulless and a former member of the Thirteenth Order. Ultimately, the two of them need to meet, and Riku is slowly beginning to understand this. !!UNLIKE IN CANON, Roxas will not disappear when he meets Sora, since they are two seperate beings, as opposed to the way canon dealt with this.
*Axel - Roxas' best friend while he was in the Order. He's not quite as in-the-dark and manipulated as the rest of the Order, and he seems to have his own agenda about things...
*Xion - Roxas' other best friend while he was in the Order, and a clone of Roxas. Since she was pretty much a copy of a copy, she was very unstable, and she ultimately ended up falling to pieces. Erm... literally. It was traumatizing for Roxas, to say the least.
Third Person Writing Sample:
There were days that Riku wondered if it was possible to have an existential crisis when you're still only a teenager.
Riku did not know who he was. He hated the phrasing of it, hated how contrived and pathetic it sounded, but for the most part, it was true. That wasn't to say he didn't have a pretty good idea, but he didn't understand everything, and that's what bothered him the most. He did know that people weren't meant to be simple (he was by no means simple, he gathered that much), but what happened when one person wasn't just... one person? What needed to be taken into consideration when someone had another being with them, somewhere, lurking and waiting and...
He hated it. He hated thinking about it, but he knew he couldn't avoid it, and he was determined not to. It was why he parted with Mickey, even though he wasn't entirely thrilled by the idea of carrying his burdens alone. Ansem was still a part of him. He'd said as much himself. That aside, Riku could still feel him there, if he let himself do so. He could feel the power, the anger, could smell the sickening stench of his ultimate darkness.
Riku could overcome this - would overcome this. He just didn't want to do it in front of any of his friends.
Wandering alone gave him time to think, and the only useful thing he could think of was...
"I almost wasn't expecting you."
... apparently waiting for him when he arrived.
"Almost?" Riku responded, flatly, quirking an eyebrow as he closed the door behind him. Maybe he shouldn't be here after all, especially if DiZ was going to meet him with arrogance. This was beginning to not bode well at all.
"For someone who wishes to carve his own path, you're certainly not acting the part."
Right. Arrogance. Riku would have rolled his eyes, but it made no difference while he was blindfolded. Instead, he crossed his arms. "Alright, maybe I won't offer you my help then."
DiZ had the audacity to chuckle at that. "I would appreciate it, regardless. You're welcome to stay."
He could tell this was going to be an uneasy alliance.
Player LJ: sykkea
Email and/or AIM: TharianDream
Timezone: US/Central
Character: Riku
Series: Kingdom Hearts
Deviance: 2 (?) -- A steampunk AU! Canon events happen pretty much by the book (except for some minor differences), but the whole thing takes place in one world, split up into floating landmasses/islands that you can only travel between by airship or magic, due to the crazy, crazy storms that line the skies.
Age: 16
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Canon Used: All of the games: Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days...
Appearance: Seriously, just search google images for "Kingdom Hearts Riku". You get all kinds of stuff.
http://gamesnet.vo.llnwd.net/o1/gamestar/objects/244443_main.jpg
http://www.finalfantasyworld.co.uk/khextreme/kh2/images/artwork/KH2_Artwork_BFU.jpg
Just... don't pay attention to the outfits. ♥ Being from a steampunk AU means I get to have all sorts of fun coming up with steampunky outfits for him to be wearing. Mostly, knowing his tastes, these outfits will be simple enough - black pants, white shirt, grey vest... (maybe I can talk him into a snazzy top hat. Hmm~~)
Psychology:
Riku is typically the calm, cool and collected type, especially in the beginning. This by no means implies that he's content to just let things be. With an insatiable curiosity and a willingness to push himself beyond his own limits, Riku often gets himself (or in some cases, the whole damn island) in trouble. Combine that with wanderlust, and Riku is not one to stay confined on a pretty little island for very long, no matter how peaceful it may be...
He's also very competitive, especially with Sora, which probably stemmed from his jealousy of him. It takes the entirety of the first game and his being freed from the clutches of Xehanort's Heartless for him to realize his shortcomings and begin to heal. He even goes as far as accepting his darkness and learning to use it/live with it.
That doesn't mean he doesn't still have a guilt complex about a mile wide. If he screws up, he's more than likely to beat himself up about it for way longer than is strictly necessary. In many cases, regret and the desire to make amends can be a driving force for Riku.
Through everything he's had to face, he has matured greatly. He is a very loyal and protective friend, going the extra mile to do whatever is in his power to keep those he loves safe even when he has to do so in secret.
Other Skills/Abilities:
Combat-wise, Riku knows his way around a sword/keyblade. He can also manipulate the element of darkness: he has spells like "dark firaga" (a ball of darkness flung at the enemy, essentially) and can create a shield out of dark energy in much the same way.
That aside, Riku also possesses the ability to detect the "smell" of darkness in people. It's more like a sensory thing, though there's a canon comment he makes about how similar someone smells to another based on the amount of darkness in their hearts. It doesn't mean he'll know what someone's done to gain that scent of darkness on them, but he'll know it's there and they can't hide it. He doesn't often let on that he has this ability, though, and will mostly keep his observations on the matter to himself (which may or may not stem from guilt, silly boy)
Other Weaknesses:
Most of his weaknesses are psychological, not physical. However, despite the fact that he is pretty much crazy powerful and talented (he's a boss character, okay?), he's still a squishy human that will bleed if you poke him or bleed to death if you poke him a helluva lot.
History:
It began on an island chain, with three curious children. Sora, Riku and Kairi grew up here, spending their days playing on the beach and generally doing what children do. It just so happened that, for whatever reason, those simple times just weren't enough for Riku.
Riku was haunted by an image from his dreams: a door that led somewhere beyond. His curiosity bled into reality, and he eventually became insistent - no, obsessed - with finding out what lies beyond the horizon, beyond where the water empties into the world below at the end of the islands, beyond even the dark, horrible storms that separated the islands from... well, whatever was on the other side. He had to see it. And so, they built a tiny little airboat, one that they believed could take them there...
They never got the chance to try their airboat. The night they finished, the bordering storms seemed to enclose on the islands and cover everything in a dark, horrible mist. Riku went to investigate, and somehow, was given the power to part the storms: the Keyblade. Unfortunately, he also gave into the darkness, seeing it as his ticket to finally leaving the islands. As the island began to sink into the mist below, engulfed by the darkness and swarmed by creatures called the Heartless, Riku vanished, and the Keyblade was lost to him.
He awoke away from his friends in a place he didn't recognize: another world, a different floating landmass than the islands he'd grown up on. He was found by a woman who called herself Maleficent, and she offered him shelter, protection, and power... She also began to twist his thoughts to her advantage, trying to turn the boy against his friends. She convinced him that Sora easily replaced him with new friends, and that Sora would never be able to save Kairi. While Riku wasa bit suspicious of her, he ultimately sided with her, unsure why it was that Sora seemed so nonchalant about everything after all.
While Riku eventually found Kairi's body, he still could't find her heart. So he stayed with Maleficent, believing that by staying near to her, he would have a much better chance of saving her than Sora would just traipsing about, world to world. She gave him him power, just as she said she would, but with each new gift his heart was pulled even further into darkness.
Confused yet? It's about to get weirder, and it's not going to slow down.
Riku confronted Sora in a place called the Hollow Bastion, but he was no longer himself - possessed by a dark force, a voice... someone else, who called himself Ansem. He wielded a new Keyblade... a dark one, with the ability to directly unlock people's hearts. He used it to strike down Maleficent, and when Sora took her down, he came for Ansem next. Though Ansem failed to bring Sora down, Sora struck himself, unlocking Kairi's heart in the process. With Sora out of the picture and Kairi a full person once more, Ansem turned his attention on Kairi, but Riku used every last bit of strength he still had to hold Ansem off and told Kairi to run. She did. This began an internal struggle between Riku and Ansem, which Riku eventually lost. Ansem took full control over his body.
It wasn't until the "end" that Riku was restored, inside of the Realm of Light, behind a door that lay at the bottom of the mist-covered surface of the planet. Thousands of Heartless began to swarm, ready to overtake this realm, but Riku and King Mickey held them off as well as they could. Riku and Sora, aware that the door needed to close, did so - Sora in the the darkness, and Riku stuck in the light. Riku's final words to his friend were, "Take care of her." Kairi.
Riku awoke in a place called Castle Oblivion, all the way in the lowest basement level, surrounded in darkness and feeling lost. He heard a voice, who presented with a choice: to sleep here, to forget everything and to forget about the light... or to press onward and see the truth. Riku very easily decided to go after the truth, the answers... because it was probably "a boring place to take a nap anyway."
His journey through Castle Oblivion had him confront people, places and events from his memories. He eventually came upon Ansem, who mocked and challenged him. Mickey appeared long enough to help defeat him, but Ansem once again unlocked the darkness in Riku's heart before taking his leave. Riku refused to rely on his darkness and, stubbornly, pressed onward.
Riku fought bravely, even when confronted with a replica of himself (crafted by Zexion - a member of The Order), determined to defeat the darkness inside of him and become strong enough to find and protect his friends once again. However, when he is defeated by Zexion, the light overtook him and he began to feel himself slipping away... until he heard Kairi calling to him, telling him that the light is no match for him, but more importantly, neither is the darkness. He reawakened his dark powers, embraced the magic of the mist, and defeated Zexion. He finally accepted that these powers were not evil, and were a part of himself that he could no longer deny, and instead he chose to embrace them and use them to his advantage.
Accepting his control over darkness and mist magic, however, came with a consequence. Riku began to suffer from a sort of day-blindness - spending too long in the light made him completely unable to see anything at all. He accepted this, hoping to fix it later. Surely there would be a solution, even a temporary one. But for the moment, he had bigger worries.
He found Naminé in Castle Oblivion, a clone of Kairi that held no darkness, protecting Sora in a sort of sleep chamber. Riku commented that they were very similar, but also called her out on appearing to him before in the form of Kairi. She simply smiled. She gave him a choice once again: sleep, suppress his darkness and forget, or to continue onward. Riku, determined to overcome on his own, turned her down. Naminé was glad to hear it, and wished him well before turning her attention back to watching over the sleeping Sora.
Riku called Ansem forward from within himself. Ansem began to mock him, calling him a coward who was afraid of the dark. Riku denied this, saying he wasn't afraid of anything, he just couldn't stand Ansem's "foul stench". Riku defeated him, but not before Ansem vowed to return, as a part of him still resided within him.
A man was waiting for both Mickey and him outside of Castle Oblivion, and Riku recognized him as the voice that was following him ever since he awoke. The man, DiZ, demanded another choice from Riku: to choose between light and darkness, and which road he will take. Riku, with a smirk, answered that he would take neither - he would take the path in the middle, the road to the dawn.
Riku and Mickey eventually parted once they were away from the castle, as Riku realized he still could not fully get rid of Ansem and knew that something had to be done about it. Mickey conceded. His parting gift was a blindfold, to help with Riku's struggle with his day-blindness. With that, Riku made his way to a world called Twilight Town, to aid DiZ in whatever he was up to...
Canon Point: The equivalent of the end of Chain of Memories.
Reality Description:
It's pretty stereotypically steampunk, especially as far as technology is concerned. Magic exists, in basic fire/ice/thunder/air ways.
People live on floating landmasses, all of which are cut off from one another due to violent, impassable storms that line the skies and block all passage. It's been this way for hundreds of years - most don't even think of traveling to other lands except as pipe dreams and passing fancies that they know they could never reach. Beneath the landmasses, the surface is covered in a thick mist. It's thought that the ground and the ocean are here, but the truth is... every city that was ever taken by the Heartless sunk beneath this mist. Plenty of nasty creatures and monsters lurk here. No one goes there.
So yes, it is possible to fall off the end of a world here. And more than likely, no one will ever hear from you again.
Technology is at the same level as the Industrial Age in most places, in keeping with the steampunk theme. There is also magic, limited to fire, ice, thunder and air, mostly. It's possible to learn to control "mist magic," but it's a very forbidden art and typically only used by the Heartless, the Soulless, or the incredibly evil. (Or Riku, due to his time fighting for the wrong people.)
The easiest way to tell how this 'verse is different from that of the original Kingdom Hearts is to list, honestly, so I'm just going to do a sort of word-drop and comparison here:
*Storms - dark, horrible, impassable currents of wind, rain and other nasty weather-like things that divide the worlds.
*Mist - the actual surface of the planet is covered with it. It's impossible to see what's really down there on the surface, but when a world falls victim to the heartless, it sinks into the mist and is lost.
*Worlds - called "worlds", but really just separate landmasses all on the same planet. These landmasses are separated by the storms and are all cut off from one another. (PS: Monstro? The gigantic whale? Is a flying air whale. Kickass, yes?)
*Heartless - The heartless are creatures that, well, lack a heart - the center of magic, power, and... essentially being. They're born from the mist, and when the mist takes over a world, they steal (and likely consume) the hearts of others and that world sinks into the mist below.
*Keyblades - weapons, swords in the shape of keys. They contain powerful magic, perhaps even some mechanical cogworks, and are from a mysterious source of magic that seems to have very close ties to the mist and the sorts of phenomenon that normal people know of only through legends and myths.
*Kingdom Hearts - a door that, if unlocked, could unseal the mist from its depths and cause it to flood the entire world. Many different factions want to find Kingdom Hearts for various reasons.
*Soulless - this world's version of the canon Nobodies. These people are actually failed experiments; someone attempted to create full soldiers with the magic of the mist. The weaker turned into horrible monsters once consumed by mist magic, but the stronger became...
*The Order/The Thirteenth Order - guess who? Organization XIII. They're more complicated in this world, however. The members of The Thirteenth Order are actually clones of their original selves, infused with mist magic that takes the form of a particular elemental "alignment" that varies from person to person. They have their own hearts and memories as well as the memories and experiences of their oringinals. Because of this, yeah, they're kind of mentally unstable (understandably so!). They want to use the weilders of the keyblades, and through them, they hope to gain control over the mist and... well, everything else.
Other things to note:
*The gummi ship "Highwind" has been replaced by an armored zeppelin with the same name. It's capable of crossing the storms between the worlds by using the paths created by the mist.
*Digital Twilight Town never existed - steampunk technology isn't that awesome, sorry. Instead, DiZ watches over Sora while he sleeps to regain his memories, and when Roxas is brought to him, he's used to awaken Sora. He... is then tossed in a prison cell and forgotten about, poor kid. ~~Someone~~ eventually saves him, though... ♥
*Riku's blindfold isn't to keep him from looking like Ansem (in fact, that's getting cut out entirely) - he actually developed a type of day-blindness from messing around with mist magic in his attempts to grow stronger.
Important people include:
*Sora - The hero of the keyblade, and Riku's best friend. He travels the worlds in an attempt to fight off the Heartless.
*Kairi - Riku's other best friend, and a Princess of Heart - one of seven princesses that are not at all corrupted by darkness or the mist that it comes from.
*Roxas - Sora's other half, a Soulless and a former member of the Thirteenth Order. Ultimately, the two of them need to meet, and Riku is slowly beginning to understand this. !!UNLIKE IN CANON, Roxas will not disappear when he meets Sora, since they are two seperate beings, as opposed to the way canon dealt with this.
*Axel - Roxas' best friend while he was in the Order. He's not quite as in-the-dark and manipulated as the rest of the Order, and he seems to have his own agenda about things...
*Xion - Roxas' other best friend while he was in the Order, and a clone of Roxas. Since she was pretty much a copy of a copy, she was very unstable, and she ultimately ended up falling to pieces. Erm... literally. It was traumatizing for Roxas, to say the least.
Third Person Writing Sample:
There were days that Riku wondered if it was possible to have an existential crisis when you're still only a teenager.
Riku did not know who he was. He hated the phrasing of it, hated how contrived and pathetic it sounded, but for the most part, it was true. That wasn't to say he didn't have a pretty good idea, but he didn't understand everything, and that's what bothered him the most. He did know that people weren't meant to be simple (he was by no means simple, he gathered that much), but what happened when one person wasn't just... one person? What needed to be taken into consideration when someone had another being with them, somewhere, lurking and waiting and...
He hated it. He hated thinking about it, but he knew he couldn't avoid it, and he was determined not to. It was why he parted with Mickey, even though he wasn't entirely thrilled by the idea of carrying his burdens alone. Ansem was still a part of him. He'd said as much himself. That aside, Riku could still feel him there, if he let himself do so. He could feel the power, the anger, could smell the sickening stench of his ultimate darkness.
Riku could overcome this - would overcome this. He just didn't want to do it in front of any of his friends.
Wandering alone gave him time to think, and the only useful thing he could think of was...
"I almost wasn't expecting you."
... apparently waiting for him when he arrived.
"Almost?" Riku responded, flatly, quirking an eyebrow as he closed the door behind him. Maybe he shouldn't be here after all, especially if DiZ was going to meet him with arrogance. This was beginning to not bode well at all.
"For someone who wishes to carve his own path, you're certainly not acting the part."
Right. Arrogance. Riku would have rolled his eyes, but it made no difference while he was blindfolded. Instead, he crossed his arms. "Alright, maybe I won't offer you my help then."
DiZ had the audacity to chuckle at that. "I would appreciate it, regardless. You're welcome to stay."
He could tell this was going to be an uneasy alliance.