Kingdom Hearts: Fragments of Starlight

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts! That is the property of Disney (even though Square-Enix was the one who developed it)

Note: Just to let you know, you will need to have read KH Radiant Dawn first before reading this one, as this takes place after the end of Radiant Dawn. So you will need to read the first story to get the full story and enjoyment of this one. Thank you for your understanding.

Pairings: The same as it was in KH Radiant Dawn. Although I would like to hear your thoughts about who you think Lucille should end up with. In the meantime I'll still drop hints here and there. =3

Genre: Adventure/Humor/Family/Friendship/Angst and, of course, totally fantasy. =P

Summary: Lucille, Florian and Chi are left in an unknown place after closing the Door to Darkness. They meet a quirky but friendly nobody called Quartz and discover that Sora and his friends had entered Castle Oblivion, where a shady group of people in black coats were doing something sinister within. Can they overcome the trials set before them to save her brother? Or will they face their oblivion?

Episode 1: Nobody In White

They continued to walk along the grassy fields towards the castle in the distance.

"Geez, why does it feel like we're not getting anywhere near that castle? Feels like we've been walking for ages." Lucille panted.

"Um, should we rest? You shouldn't push yourself, even if we're not in the Realm of Darkness anymore," Florian suggested.

"Hm, maybe getting a rest would be a good idea. We used up a lot of energy going into Union Drive twice." Lucille nodded.

"I have noticed that we had not seen a single Heartless. In fact, besides us, I haven't seen a single other person," Chi noted.

"Yeah...just where are we? We escaped the Realm of Darkness, although I still don't know how exactly we escaped. Do you have any ideas, Ava?"

"I'm sorry, when you fell unconscious, I did too, so I don't really remember what happened after," Ava apologized.

"Ah well, it was worth a shot." Lucille sat down on the grass and laid down to look at the starry skies above. "At least the ground isn't too hard to rest on for a world that seems empty."

"I have a feeling that it was the Great World Tree that brought us here. I remember hearing its voice just before my mind went blank," Florian recalled.

"Me too! I heard it too! So that really was the World Tree itself talking to us? Huh...I didn't know you could speak with plants. Is that because you were a flower before?" Lucille teased.

Florian chuckled. "No, nothing like that. All Seraphim can hear the Great World Tree. It speaks in the seraphic language that all Seraphim are naturally in tuned to understand. It must have been because we were in Union Drive that you heard it too," Florian answered.

Lucille gave a short nod. "That makes sense. It was right after we purified one of its roots from the Heartless corruption that has infected it. I wonder, though...That Ratatosk guy said the Great World Tree had roots in countless worlds, right? Just how many of them are infected by the Heartless right now?"

"Ratatosk...That Seraph had scary eyes. There was no warmth or light in them at all, like they were lifeless." Florian shivered.

"I get the feeling that we haven't seen the last of him either...He's certainly nothing like you or Luma. Speaking of them...I wonder how they're doing...Especially Sora, Kairi, Zen and Oswald..."

"You should have seen their faces when you chose to stay behind in the Realm of Darkness," Chi told her.

"Yeah...I can imagine their reaction...Ah man...I'm gonna get chewed out big time by both of them," Lucille lamented.

"I-I'm sure that they'll understand. We did help to hold the tide of Heartless back while they were trying to get the Door to Darkness shut." Florian tried to cheer her up and patted her back gently.

"This might sound selfish...but I'm glad they didn't follow after us. I was worried about Zen. If we had remained trapped in the Realm of Darkness even after purifying the root, the darkness might have gotten to him eventually because of that claw of his. I didn't want him to be hurt or suffer any more. I didn't take into account just how much pain he'd be in because of the Heartless claw absorbing the darkness in that realm."

"It's not selfish to put the well-being of others above your own, Lady Lucille," Chi lightly scolded and shook her head. "You were probably right and the darkness might have eaten away at Zen. Keeping him on the Realm of Light's side was the right choice. Even if Zen doesn't agree with that choice," Chi added.

"He's still gonna chew me out even if it was for his own good. I can just imagine it now. He's such a jerk, just like Riku!" Lucille huffed.

"I do hope Riku and King Mickey are okay, though, wherever they ended up," Florian prayed.

"Yeah...me too. Hopefully we'll bump into them here, but considering we hadn't even seen anyone else yet..." Lucille stared up at the starlit sky, it was surprisingly clear and bright tonight.

"You know, for a world that seems pretty empty, it has a beautiful sky."

When they heard something rustling in the grass nearby, Lucille jumped to her feet and summoned her Lux Arma. Taking the initiative first, she pounced on whoever was trying to ambush them.

"YIKES! Wait, wait, wait! I'm a nice Nobody, I swear! I'm not with the ones in the black coats!" A surprisingly high yelp came from the would-be ambusher, who quickly plead for his life.

"...Well, you gave up quick." Lucille raised an eyebrow.

"A Nobody? Are you one of those unique nobodies that have a human form? I heard stories that there are nobodies like that, but most of them are Dusks," Florian commented innocently.

"Is this proof enough?" The young man asked as he pulled down the hood to reveal his face to them.

He looked almost around the same age as Aster himself. He had short, wavy pale green hair that framed his face perfectly, although one side seemed longer that the rest of his wavy strands at the front, even almost covering his left. He had lilac-shaded eyes that were soft and sincere. It was hard to tell if the white trench coat along with the baggy pants and boots that matched the colour of the trench coat itself were the only things he was wearing underneath the coat.

One thing Lucille did notice was that one of his wavy strands of hair in the front had some black string wrapped around it and dangling at the end of that string was a small but beautiful crystal shard that glittered whenever it reflected the light. She could have sworn that the shard even gave a soft glow of light from within.

However, Lucille got the impression that the young man was...well...completely harmless.

"Huh, you don't look different from a normal person to me," Lucille noted.

The young man seemed to beam at this. "Really?! That's great! I was kinda worried I looked like a monster underneath the hood. You see, I can't really see my own face," the man admitted shyly.

"You...can't see your face? Do you know what a mirror is?" Chi questioned.

"You misunderstand, I have no reflection, so I can't see what I look like for myself. I have to rely on how people see me. And so far...well...let's just say you guys have been the only ones to see my face. Everyone else apparently keeps thinking I wear my hood all the time even when it's down."

"This one mean person thought I was a Heartless, and he chased me around Traverse Town with that scary gunblade of his. It was so horrible." He sniffed and whimpered at the memory.

Lucille only looked stupified. "How old are you exactly?"

"Uhhhhh..." The young man looked up to the sky as if trying to count the stars, then looked at his fingers and started to count them off but stopped when he came to a painful realization. "Um...I can't count. I never learned how, so I kinda don't know how old I am."

"He's like a five year old trapped inside a young man's body!" Chi cried out.

"Well, Nobodies like this guy are similar to Seraphim. They usually match the shell of their somebody whom created them when their heart is taken by the Heartless and the body is left behind," Florian explained.

"So...he could look like an old man but still only just a few days old? Depending on how long their somebody has vanished?"

"It also takes a really strong heart to create a Nobody too," Florian added.

Lucille looked back at the young man and looked confused. "If this guy had a strong heart to create a powerful Nobody like this, I wonder if the Heartless caused brain damage too."

The young man pouted his lips, looking genuinely hurt by the comment.

"Lucille, maybe you should go a little easy on him," Florian advised.

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound mean," She apologized.

"No, I'm sorry. I guess it was pretty rude of me to try and approach you without revealing myself first. You probably thought I was one of those mean people in the black coats, so I can't blame you for jumping on me like that." The young man also apologized.

"You keep saying people in black coats-what do you mean by that?" Chi questioned.

"You don't know about them? They're a group of really strong Nobodies, but they're not very nice and obsessed with trying to get hearts of their own." He tilted his head in confusion.

"Hmm...They certainly sound like bad news. How do you know about them if you're not with them?" Lucille wondered.

"...I...really don't know. They just appeared one day out of nowhere and they said they wanted to 'study' me. I really didn't like the look in their leader's eyes and they reeked of darkness. I was so scared of them! So...I ran away and I've been world-hopping ever since." He shook his head.

"They just started to hunt you down out of nowhere?" Florian looked puzzled.

"I know...I don't know why either. I'm no one special, or at least-I don't think I am. I don't know anything about myself."

"You have amnesia?" Lucille looked saddened at this.

The young man in the white trench coat simply nodded.

"Now I feel even more horrible for picking on you earlier." Lucille felt guilty for how she acted earlier.

The young man shook his head. "It's okay. It's probably why I'm the way I am." He chuckled sadly.

"Do you have no memory of your Somebody at all?" Florian asked.

The Nobody in the white trench coat simply shook his head again. "I don't know what happened to my Somebody, but...I get the feeling that something awful happened to their world and they were a victim of it."

"I see." Florian frowned sadly.

"You know, that's a really beautiful crystal. Did you always have it?" Lucille decided to change the topic a little by bringing up the crystal shard that was tied to one of the wavy strands of the young man's hair.

"Oh, this? Yeah, this is the only thing I had with me when I first awakened as a Nobody. I can sense a powerful light radiating from it. I know it's something important to my Somebody. That's...just what my heart tells me, so I keep it with me at all times in memory of him."

"That's very thoughtful." Lucille smiled.

"Strange, I was told Nobodies don't have hearts. They just think they do since they still remember what it's like to be Someones." Florian tilted his head slightly.

"Hmm...how do I explain this? We technically don't at the very beginning, but we can grow our own hearts over time? Kinda like how you Seraphim guys can grow hearts of your own, right?"

Florian nodded and smiled. "Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I was originally a Paopu flower but I managed to develop and grow my own heart through my connection with Lucille."

"Ooh, you guys have a history? Aw, I'm jealous."

"Well, let's just say fate works in mysterious ways, but I know one thing-Florian has saved my life countless times. I'd be completely helpless without him," She confessed.

Florian blushed lighly at the praise.

"Oh! That's right. We've talked for all this time and I haven't introduced myself yet!" the young man suddenly realized. "I'm Quartz, or at least as far as my memory goes that's my name. I dunno if it's my true name or not."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Lucille. Florian here is my seraphim partner, and this is Chi. She's a Chirithy."

"It's a delight to meet all of you. So...this will sound weird but...how did you guys end up here? This world isn't a place that can be just visited by anyone."

"Well...this is going to sound like a really bizarre story but-" Lucille proceeded to explain their story to Quartz, who eagerly listened to all of it.

When their tale came to the conclusion, Quartz looked both confused and fascinated at the same time.

"Wow! I can't believe all that was happening while I was just worried about getting caught by those guys in the black coats!"

"Hopefully, all the worlds that were stolen by the Heartless have been restored. I wish I could see how my islands are doing. Mom and Dad are probably interrogating poor Kairi as we speak about us and Riku. Especially my Mom."

"We'll get out of here, Lucille. Besides, I would love to meet the parents of Lady Lucille and young Master Sora," Chi tried to cheer her up.

"You...might change your mind once you meet my Mom..." Lucille paled.

"Oh, that's right...Your mother had always been an over-protective person." Florian sweat-dropped.

"You still remember that even though you were a flower?" Lucille smirked.

"Your mother is certainly...unique." Florian laughed sheepishly.

"What about your Dad?" Quartz asked curiously.

"Dad...? Hmm...I guess you could say Dad is the calm one. He always knew how to pacify Mom when she gets too overprotective over me and Sora. He's also an amazing crafter. He made mine and Sora's necklaces. He always says that there's a bit of magic put into each charm and accessory he makes, but he was just being poetic...I think."

"He crafts charms and accessories? Hmm..." Chi wondered thoughtfully. "Do you mind me asking how your Father came to know such skills?"

"I...I don't think even my Dad knows. You see, he technically isn't from the main island. He washed up on the beach one day just like Kairi did. Mom was the one who tended to him since he was badly injured and suffered memory-loss."

"How romantic~" Quartz innocently commented.

"Yeah, sounds pretty corny, huh?" Lucille laughed. "It did happen, though, and the rest is history. Even to this day, though, Dad never got back his old memories, but he said he doesn't need them anymore since he has us."

"..." Chi was quiet, as if she was pondering something deep.

"Chi, what's wrong?" Lucille asked curiously since the Chirithy was being oddly quiet.

"I think Chi is thinking along the same lines as me...I've been meaning to ask, Lucille...Is there a chance that your father might have come from another world? Just like Kairi did?" Ava asked Lucille mentally through their connection.

'I have been thinking about that too. Could it really be that...' Lucille trailed off in her line of thought.

"No, please don't worry, Lady Lucille." Chi shook her head. Lucille decided to leave it since it was probably the same question that Ava had asked.

"I've been meaning to ask...why were you trying to approach us, Mr. Quartz?"

"Whoa, that sounds way too formal. Just call me Quartz." The pale greenette shook his head quickly. "About why I was trying to catch up with you guys...you weren't thinking of going to that castle in the distance, right?"

"Oh, that castle?" Lucille pointed in the distance. "Well yeah, that's the idea."

"You can't!" Quartz quickly blurted out. It made all of them jump a little. "That's Castle Oblivion! It's super dangerous over there right now! Those men in the black coats are there and they're doing all kinds of weird creepy experiments! Now that I think about it, I swear not long ago-I saw a boy and two of his friends enter that place and they never came back out."

Quartz made a huge gasp. "Oh no! What if those men in the black coats captured them and they're doing twisted experiments on them?!"

"Calm down! Okay, start from the beginning, who are these people you saw go inside and never came back out and what experiments?" Lucille placed her hands over his shoulders.

"Uhh...Well, when I world-hopped into this world, I arrived around the same time as this brunette boy and his two friends. One was a duck and the other was a dog. I was curious and tried to peak inside, but when I saw that man in the black coat appear before them, I ran away," Quartz recalled the events. "Why didn't I stop them from going inside?! I'm an awful person. I left them there in the hands of those...fiends!"

"Wait, what was the name of that boy?" Lucille's eyes widened in horror.

"Uhh...I think his name was Sora if I remember what that dog said."

"That's...that's my brother! Why is Sora here?!"

"That was your brother?!" Quartz jumped in shock. "Now that I notice, there is a really strong resemblance between you two."

"Sora and Lucille are identical twins, so they do look very close to each other," Florian answered.

Lucille got to her feet. "Now I've got to go there! If what Quartz said is right about those Nobodies in the black coats and all those...experiments..." Lucille shivered at the thought of her brother being used by them.

Quartz got up to his feet and bravely spoke up, "I'll-I'll go too! It's my fault for not doing anything and running away like a coward that they're still in there in their captivity. I'd never forgive myself if I didn't make that right. Especially since he's family to you."

"But...aren't you on the run from those guys?" Lucille asked.

"Yes, and I'm still scared of getting caught by them...but I have go there as well. I want to save your brother and his two friends," Quartz admitted.

Lucille smiled kindly. "Thank you, Quartz. I know you feel bad for what happened, but I don't blame you, okay? It's not like you led them there on purpose."

"B-but even so...I could have prevented it if I just stood my ground and told them not to trust that guy but...I ran away."

Lucille shook her head. "Does it really matter now whose to blame? The important thing is to rescue them, and I intend to do that. I appreciate you coming with us, even though you're scared of those nobodies."

"Don't worry, we'll protect you if those Nobodies try anything. Right, Lucille? Florian reassured.

"Absolutely." Lucille winked.

"It's not like I don't know how to fight back too." Quartz puffed his cheeks. "But...I'm thankful that'd you'd help me, even though I don't deserve it."

"Aw, ain't that cute? I think I might develop cavities from all the sweetness." A new yet teasing voice made their existence known.

Through a portal of darkness, a man in a black coat slipped through it.

"Ahhh! It's one of the black coats!" Quartz cried out.

"Excellent detective skills there, kid. Man, why the boss wants you captured I'll never know. Still, orders are orders," The man sarcastically noted as he pulled his hood off and revealed his face to them.

"And you are?" Lucille narrowed her eyes.

"The name's Axel, got it memorized?" The red-haired man smirked.

"...Sure, why not." Lucille rolled her eyes. "Now tell me, is my brother in that castle and if so you better tell me where exactly or those Nobodies are going to be one man down," Lucille threatened.

"Whoa, the Keyblade Master's sister is a feisty one. I like that. Anyway, funny enough, my boss wants your capture as well. Don't ask me why, I don't know either. I just follow orders, so no hard feelings." Axel smirked before summoning his chakrams into his hands.

"Well your boss is going to be very unhappy with you because I have no intentions of letting you take Quartz or myself." Lucille summoned both her weapons as well.

"We'll see about that," Axel countered and just when he was going to use his fire magic, Quartz quickly intervened with magic of his own.

"Stay away from us!" From a wave of one of Quartz's hands, a wall of crystallized light spiked up like icicles from the ground, essentially imprisoning Axel inside.

"Whoa, that's so cool!" Florian cheered.

"C'mon, let's go! We'll make it to the castle this way!" Quartz quickly created a portal of light out of thin air.

"You can use Corridors of light too?! I thought only Seraphim knew about them." Florian blinked.

"Eheh heh...I guess that's another mystery about me that needs solving." Quartz laughed nervously before his face grew serious again. "Anyway, c'mon, this portal will take us right to the castle's entrance."

Not wasting any time, they quickly entered the portal of light before Quartz jumped in after them, closing the portal after him. At that moment, Axel used his fire abilities to break out of his crystal prison.

"Crystallized light, huh? I'm beginning to see why Xemnas wants him brought to the Organization. Two can play this game though." Axel fired up a portal of darkness and slipped inside it to chase after the group. No target ever escapes him.

And so we begin the Chain of Memories Arc. Sorry about it being shorter than my usual chapters, think of it as a pilot. XD

As you already know if you read my last chapter in the Radiant Dawn fan fic, this takes place after Sora and Riku's time in the castle. Well, technically just after Riku's adventure. So this will be an original plot to spice things up. =3

I hope you look forward to what's in store for this one!

Also to those who leave guest reviews, to make it easier to answer your replies during review corner, would it be okay for you guys to add a pen-name when you write your guest reviews? Just so I can answer your questions more directly. =3

You don't have to if you don't want to, but I just feel it would be easier to communicate with you guys about any questions you have and not accidentally write the answer to the wrong person. If that makes sense.

Anyways, please leave a review if you like, I would love to hear your guys' thoughts and feedback. =3

So until next chapter, see you all next time and happy reading! Moogle Empress, out!

Moogle: Kupo!