For all of you stumbling on this chapter, you might want to check out the earlier chapters since I updated like three times…Chapter 25 is the (incredibly short) epilogue, and Chapter 26 the noncanon secret ending. Youu can ignore them since 25 will be part of the prologue to the CoM story and Chapter 26, like the secret ending of the actual game is just an idea of the future. Next you might want to check out my profile and vote in the poll if you haven't already. Also, I'm considering moving this into the Mario/KH crossover section rather than KH/Game X-over crossover section because of all the SPM in it, and I'm trying to figure out whether this should only cover the first four entries in the KH series (KH1, CoM, KH2, and Days) or continue all the way to KH3, so if you could review or PM me what you think on these things I'd appreciate it.

Author's Notes

In case you haven't guessed, I don't like author's notes, they disrupt the flow of the story and don't really fit (hence why I've tried to thank everyone over PM rather than on the story). However with the story over, I would like to give you guys a bit of thoughts on the chapters and other things that are mini insights into the chapters.

Prologue:

This was actually written on a late night in June shortly after the inspiration struck to write this and I figured out the base. At the time a lot was up in the air and I wasn't even sure if this was going to go anywhere or just stop at one chapter. It was purposely written to be vague and is the only chapter of the story beta'd. (I'll explain this later…maybe)

I actually believe the shield fits Sora the most. I wrote this chapter, along with many of the others in the first ten chapters before I first played Final Mix/Kingdom Hearts 1 in general. Funny enough, my choices were fairly similar.

The PoHs on the glass are Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, and Shiki. Funny enough, at the time of writing, Shiki was one of the two I was planning to switch out.

Chapter 1:

This is somewhat a novelization chapter before I'd introduced anything. I bet at that chapter you thought Peach was going to be a partner for most of the game? Huh?

The Riku/Sora win lose ratio was intentional, if you haven't figured it out. Sora finally one upped him, but it was when saving Riku had become more important.

Anyways, I don't really have a lot to say here either, just that I bet you were all thrown off with the introduction of Bowser. :D

Chapter 2:

I did in fact choose to name the raft Kingdom Key, although I did lose to Riku in the race because I suck. :/

This chapter actually partially reveals my motive for writing the story, this story is a mix novelization between Super Paper Mario (for the most part) and Kingdom Hearts. When you think about it, they should have been crossed a bit sooner. Both stories are "world" hopping journeys in which the end of the world is the main goal of the villains (combined with ultimate power) and the main villain for most of the game is not the final villain. For whatever reason, I'm the first to act on this, and I think it came out reasonably well.

Chapter 3:

I think it's either this or the second End of the World chapter that is my shortest. I liked this chapter a lot when I wrote it and actually edited it a little when I first played the game.

Chapter 4:

Once again, not accurate to my playthrough because guess who lost to Leon. (This girl)

The Leon fight is purposely shorter than any other because Sora's easily overwhelmed by everything…

Chapter 5:

I loved this chapter. I loved introducing Count Bleck, I loved introducing Sora to the Mario characters, everything about this chapter was just awesome.

Chapter 6:

Hyrule, I love the Zelda games. This one is based in Ocarina of Time Zelda because then Sora can visit next year and I don't have to come up with a bad original plot, not to mention at the time of writing Ocarina of Time was the Zelda game I got the farthest in.

Also, I really wanted to refer to Tippi as his fairy.

And we saw some Mimi, which was pretty cool.

Chapter 7:

I wrote this and I was thinking "it's a fighting world-Smash Bros required" and so that's what I did. Sora got to be awesome here and the Final Smash, which I'm sure you all dismissed, did come back.

Chapter 8:

I hated this chapter, especially the end, but I needed a world to separate Sora from one or more of his partners. This caused a dilemma since I didn't really want to capture Peach for another couple of worlds and well…she and Luigi would not be deterred by fear like Donald was. As for Bowser, nothing really scares him. I was really limited in options and in the end, after a replay of SPM for of all things, a mafia game, Bitlands stuck out as a world I could use, and mocking Francis is always fun, so I took it. Tippi ended up being captured and I went with it.

Chapter 9:

This was another chapter I loved. Between reintroducing Riku and the beginning of the reveal of Count Bleck, this worked great. The only thing I didn't like was O'Chunk's accent. Why did I choose to type it instead of just type normally again? (Because I'm stubborn that way.)

Chapter 10:

This is my second least favorite chapter in the fic. I specifically picked Squeak Squad only because it had a non Dedede character Dimentio could possess like he did Fracktail, but god the chapter turned out awful, but it got what it needed to done. (I did purposely parallel some of this stuff by the way.)

Chapter 11:

This chapter was a lot of fun to write. I've always enjoyed exploring Count Bleck's and Timpani's pasts and since Jiminy's homeworld was visited, I decided theirs could be too. Anna's name come's from the Japanese name for Tippi and Damien's name is just one I happen to like (neither Blumiere's nor Count Bleck's Japanese names make great names for a Tribe of Darkness kid.) He's also purposely young, because the young are without prejudice, which was necessary for him to approve of Timpani.

Chapter 12:

This is based off of one of my favorite video games, Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky and it touched on memories, which are starting to become important to the Timpani/Blumiere subplot. In the original draft, Nicole was named Peach like my typical internet character name, however because of the fact that the princess is an important character, I decided to call her Nicole. That is in face my PMD team from when I was…eleven I think, and it's kind of become a tradition. My choices for their Pokemon were made for the following reasons: Sora's is because he's a normal Pokemon who grows to be powerful, and it's brown. Luigi's is a green electric type. Bowser's is a fire turtle.

Chapter 13:

This is my least favorite chapter of the fic. Mimi was thrown in there really just to boost word count and get them on Mobius and she's my favorite part of it. The problem with the trainer world and basing off of BW is that right now I didn't have a lot to do because they aren't trainers. B2W2 will hopefully be easier because of the content, but BW was insanely difficult.

Chapter 14:

This is when I actually begin to show the shift between the "main" villain from Count Bleck to Dimentio. Count Bleck is shown Tippi alive and breaks down, he becomes unsure, and Tippi begins to question everything, including her dismissal of Damien's theory. The only thing I don't like is skipping the Eggman fight, but honestly Shadow Sora's a more fitting foe than Eggman/Hook anyways.

Chapter 15:

This was purposefully a flashback chapter. She needed her memories, I wanted to write some Timpani and Blumiere, even just a small bit, because I needed it. This was another favorite chapter for me.

Chapter 16:

So many great quotes in this chapter, this is where my favorite part of the game begins. This is the point Count Bleck begins his slow path to redemption by travelling with Sora, however why he is still referred to as Count Bleck in narrative rather than Blumiere will be explained later. I purposely didn't point out the even score.

Chapter 17:

Oh how badly I wanted to include Riku II fight here, but didn't. Count Bleck, Bowser, and Luigi are my favorite parts of the chapter. This chapter was purposely designed more like Castle Bleck in terms of minion boss fight because KH didn't have this. This is part of the reason I picked Dimentio, for a Super Dimentio fight where the Maleficent dragon fight was.

Also, this is the longest real chapter of the fic.

Chapter 18:

This is literally just Riku II I had to spend so much time trying to make this long enough for a chapter. When reading this, the chapter purposefully switches PoVs into Kairi's rather than Sora's. The transition is supposed to be read so we're reading Sora giving up his heart to suddenly Kairi watching him go away. I hope I did that right…

Chapter 19:

Why don't we see what happens here in game? Originally, all seven PoHs were supposed to go with them, but I couldn't figure out how to get it to work right and just took Kairi, Peach, and Timpani with. Writing their conversation and reaction to Sora's death was one of the most difficult things I had to do. The reason Peach stays behind is because I needed to position Blumiere for his final role in the story and that was impossible if he stayed in Hollow Bastion.

Chapter 20:

First, I needed Tippi back for Chain of Memories, so I created some bs reasoning for Merlon to turn her back into a Pixl. Of course Blumiere won't approve, but he trusts Timpani. Shortly after this he returns to Flipside, as we saw. Also, lot's of cute SoKai stuff. Thank the game, not me. Blumiere was not the voice Riku heard. KH canon says it's Mickey, so our canon says it's Mario.

Chapter 21:

This chapter is what I term the loose end chapter. A lot of stuff that I needed to let you all know about was here. The minions all remained in Hollow Bastion along with the FF gang, that sort of stuff. I did choose to include the Xemnas fight because it's important to Days canon, and I also plain on including a couple of other bosses like him, namely Terra's armor in KH2.

Chapter 22:

The start of the end. This covers the first half of the End of the World. The World Terminus is the most important part of the chapter, the Wracktail battle was there to fill up the space where Chernabog would be in a novelization.

Chapter 23:

That green room…I mean mentioning all the other stuff was cool, but that green room…I hate it. I hated fighting it, and Sora voiced my pain I believe.

Chapter 24:

This is the finale. The end, this is what the fic lead up to. The battles weren't bad I hope, but it's my favorite part of the KH storyline. Blumiere chose to help Riku and stay behind because I needed somebody for Days. Originally, I wanted Timpani and Blumiere flipped, she was supposed to be with Riku (in human form) and him with Sora, but I just couldn't figure out how to get her in the Realm of Darkness and gave up. Also, yes, the Kairi part was purposely written in present tense, and those thoughts, those are Japanese exclusive I spent like an hour trying to find a translation for you guys because I wanted it complete.

Epilogue:

Like I said, this is mostly just a close like the game had and will be recapped in the CoM story.

Secret Ending:

Literally you can just look up Another Side, Another Story Deep Dive on Youtube and watch it, but I wanted to include it for completion's sake.

Storywide Facts

Concept: The concept of this fic started in 2011 when I first got into KH. I always wanted to do some kind of novelization. First it was with a god awful OC, then My Little Pony characters thrown in, later Pokemon characters replacing the KH ones. All of these ideas were scrapped (thankfully) but it's been something I've wanted to do. In January of 2013, I became obsessed with Super Paper Mario and wanted to work with that, but I couldn't bring myself to abandon KH and basically got stuck in the biggest writer's rut arguing back and forth between doing something KH or something SPM. Then I remembered a novelization I read back in 2011, Kingdom Hearts: The Nintendo Version. The fic is about ten years old now and a bit behind in terms of games, but still good. It was the only KH novelization of its kind and the opportunity to do a video game one was exciting. My biggest problem came with casting, I didn't want it to be copy paste same PoHs, worlds, etc, but who could I do. So I was talking to my sister about it (since I'd mentioned wanting to avoid Bowser because he was the Maleficent in the other) and she suggested "what about Count Bleck for Maleficent since you're using Tippi for Jiminy?" and instantly my brain started working. I was able to fill in protagonist spots, extra villain spots, literally everything just fell into place and so work began.

Count Bleck is known by that in the narrative post Hollow Bastion because doesn't see himself as Blumiere, despite going by it again, and neither does Sora. To Sora, he is still Count Bleck whether he admits it or not, and to Blumiere, he's not deserving of his name until he fixes all his messes, including Riku's darkness. In Chain of Memories and Days, where he is only introduced to characters as Blumiere, he will be referred to as Blumiere, as for KH2, he'll be referred to as Count Bleck since we're back in Sora's view. Tippi also changes names. When she is human, she's referred to as Timpani, and when she's a Pixl, she's Tippi.

Fun Facts:

The original Princesses of Heart were going to be Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, Zelda, Celebi (PMD), Rhyme, and Kairi. Shiki replaced Rhyme because of her importance to TWEWY and Tippi replaced Celebi when I decided Count Bleck was going to not have a boss fight and would be an ally as opposed to Joshua, Beat, or Neku. The Dark Future (PMD 2) was initially Wonderland and Hyrule was supposed to occur during the Agrabah slot. Peach was also supposed to be a partner through the whole story and get kidnapped when Tippi was. Tippi becoming a PoH was also a suggestion from my sister I liked and took.

Initially Tippi's memory flashbacks weren't going to be shown, however I needed more content for the chapter and that was an excellent way to get more content.

The beta thing, my original beta had some really bad things happen irl so I told them they didn't have to beta it and went to my sister. She went over the first chapter and then I decided to do the math…This whole series will be around 200-250 chapters at minimum if I go through with the whole thing, and I can't force any beta to read that amount of chapters daily-weekly, so I'm going it alone. So basically if you see something off, grammar, continuity, anything, point it out for me since I can't catch everything myself.

Originally, the FF characters were going to be replaced, but I found that pointless because they are video game characters and left them in.

In the first drafts of Timpani's and Blumiere's homeworld, Damien was initially a year older than the duo and Blumiere's best friend and Anna wasn't a character, but rather an unnamed human girl who was supposed to be Timpani's best friend would play the other character's role. This was dropped for Blumiere having two siblings mostly because it wouldn't make sense for Blumiere to be reached by those characters that much when he's in his Prognosticus fueled rage, a set of siblings he's close to have a chance.

The name of this story on my word document was Storm of Darkness, this changed when I decided I wanted to use it as a chapter name instead for Chapter 3 and I went with the name Gaming Hearts. Later I switched it again just because the initial name just didn't sit well with me. Just thought you should know. In addition, assuming each chapter reaches a new page, it covers 167 pages on a word document.

I'm not sure if any of you noticed, but with the exception of a couple of scenes (Peach/Luigi/Bowser scenes at the beginning, the Riku scenes, the Count Bleck scenes and Chapter 19) the story is told in third person narrative from the points of view of Tippi and Sora. (I'll call it semi-limited) This is done because these two are the main characters throughout the fic and will be for most of the series. The exceptions to this rule will be 358/2 Days, BBS, both of which being told by other narrators within their respective trio sets, and 3D, being narrated by Sora and Riku with Tippi only playing minor roles in the inbetween world scenes.

Anonymous Review Responses

Guest (from Chapter 11): First of all, thank you for reviewing. Second of all, I regret (not really...) to inform you that I will not be using your recommended worlds. Part of the reason is I've only played one of those games, but even then, I would not have used them. TF2 (is there even a story in this game?) and Halo don't fall in with KH's friendship theme at all and really just don't work. Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Daxter are games that take place on multiple planets per game (to my knowledge) and with knowledge of other worlds being easily accessible. I know nothing about Sly Cooper, and Mortal Combat is (to my knowledge once more) a fighting game with virtually no plot, like how would you be able to make a world out of that? Finally, if you want to recommend a game for a world, please do it towards the beginning of the story and don't do it on anon, because over PM you might be able to encourage me to do enough research to write the game, as an anonymous reviewer who only reviews world suggestions, you do not have that ability.

Bonus: Animal Crossing

This world just…didn't really fit in with the story and pacing since the point where you could access it, and most people do, would be around the third Traverse Town visit where a lot of story important things happen.. Basically, it's the Winnie the Pooh world equivalent and will have a spot in CoM. This takes place during one of the last couple of Traverse Town trips.

Why did I believe Merlon? Sora couldn't help but ask himself that as he found himself falling rapidly into the small town. He landed inside of some kind of train station. When he walked out he found a yellow dog.

"The new mayor! He's here!" The dog cheered. Sora looked at her in confusion. "I'm Isabelle. I'll be your secretary."

"Uh-"

"Oh, don't worry, you'll be fine!" Isabelle said. "You never told me your name."

"I'm Sora," he said and looked around. "Hey, where are the other town residents?"

"They all left," Isabelle said. "When the last mayor moved away, she took a lot of the residents with her. It's just me, a few shopkeepers, and a couple of others."

"Can I meet them?" Sora asked.

Isabelle smiled. "Of course, follow me." She led him up a stone path to a small dirt road where several shops were open. "Feel free to enjoy the main street. I'll be at Town Hall if you need anything." She handed him a map and pointed at a building in the upper right corner before leaving him. Unsure of what to do, he entered into the first shop. The store appeared like the towns general store, selling medicine, nets, rods, and shovels, paper, and strangely enough, furniture and carpets. Two raccoons were running the store.

"Hello," the first said. "Welcome to TnT Mart. I'm Tommy, and this is my brother Timmy. Would you like to buy something?"

"Something?" Tommy's brother, Timmy, repeated the last word Tommy said.

"Right…" Sora said. "I guess I'm just looking around for now."

"Alright, take your time," Tommy said. The store was relatively small and it wasn't long before Sora had looked over everything it had.

After a few moments of decision, Sora picked up the shovel. "How much is it?"

"That shovel is 500 bells."

Bells? That was a foreign currency, everywhere he'd been so far had operated on Munny. He reached into his pocket only to find a small bag of golden coins next to his Munny pouch. On the bag was a note that Sora chose to ignore. Smiling at his good fortune, he handed the raccoon five of the coins.

"Thank you," Tommy said and Sora left the shop, shovel in hand.

He walked over to the museum, where a brown owl sat asleep in the center of the lobby. "Excuse me, uh…" he tapped the owl on the shoulder.

"Hoo…" the owl bolted awake. "Dreadfully sorry. Anyhow, welcome to the Hikari Town Museum. I'm Blathers, the curator, is there anything I can help with?"

"I'm Sora, I was wondering what this place was like."

"This museum is run primarily due to donations from the citizens," Blathers said. "Our old mayor spent many hours trying to help us complete our collection, but she missed a couple of fossils."

"Fossils?" Sora asked.

"Of course. You can use your shovel to dig around town and find fossils of all kinds."

"Thanks Blathers," Sora said. He now had a task in mind as he left museum and returned to the town itself. He pulled out the map for guidance. No fossil digging area was listed.

"I'll be at the town hall if you need anything." Perhaps Isabelle could help. Sora, following the map, found his way to the town hall where Isabelle resided.

"Sora! It's good to see you! I hope you've found the residents nice so far," Isabelle said. "Do you need any help?"

"Yeah, Blathers said that the old mayor used to go and spend time gathering donations, I wanted to finish off her work, but don't know where to look for fossils."

"Oh, of course, follow me," Isabelle said. She led him outside, but he noticed a sadness lingering around the poor puppy as she left.

"What was the old mayor like?" Sora asked.

Isabelle seemed surprised. "She was the sweetest person ever. When we first found her it turned out she wasn't supposed to be a mayor, she was just a little kid. She never complained though, and in addition to paying off her home in full, she spent years catching every fish and bug, collecting every painting, finding every fossil. She would take money out of her savings for her debt to go towards public work projects and beautifying the town."

"Sounds like somebody dedicated. Why did she leave?" he asked.

"I don't know. One day she just stopped showing up at town hall. The first couple of days I just thought she was sick, but as the days wore on, we all got worried. I came to her home with some medicine and it was empty. The town starting dying when she left and most of the residents moved out." She was about to say more when she pointed to a roped off area of dirt. "This was where fossil excavations occur. I hope you find the fossils you're looking for."

"Thanks," Sora said and waved as Isabelle walked off. He began digging in the dirt using the shovel, and it wasn't long before he had several fossils. Putting them in a bag, he returned to the museum.

Upon entrance, he was unsurprised to see that Blathers was asleep once more. He once more woke the owl up and handed him the bones.

"Hoo?" Blathers looked them over. "Let's see, yes, these are exactly what I needed. Thank you, I will forever be in your debt."

"It was no problem, I was just happy to help," Sora said. He waved goodbye to Blathers who went to put the fossils up for display and went to another store in the area.

"Hi, welcome to the Able Sisters." Three porcupines ran the clothing store, two brown and one blue. The blue one is the one that greeted him. "Is there anything we can get you?"

"I'm just looking," Sora said and walked over to the manikins at the center of the store. While most of the designs were boring, one stood out. It was black with a crown on it. "Who made this?"

"Our old mayor did, she wasn't the best designer, but she had fun with it," the blue porcupine said. "If you'd like, you can make a design too. She handed him the sewing kit."

"Thanks," Sora said.

-x-

A half an hour later, Sora had rather poorly made a paopu fruit shirt, but the porcupine seemed to love it, putting it on display almost immediately.

"Thank you for letting me make that."

"It was our pleasure, come back any time." The porcupine waved as he left. With not a lot left to do, Sora decided to check out the last building in town, a building that looked like a mansion.

Upon entering, Sora noticed what looked like a traveler's collection. Items that he would associate with Luigi, Bowser, and Peach, a Triforce from Hyrule, and even a replica of Samus's helmet at on tables and were thrown on the floor. The upstairs was an icy room as though somewhat had permanently frozen it. The basement held furniture made out of shells. The other rooms too, were decorated differently, one looking like that of royalty, another like it was made of deserts. He made his way back to the traveler's room, the main room.

"This was her house." Isabelle had to have entered while he was exploring. "She had so much fun collecting everything you know."

"Why did she leave though?" Sora asked.

"If I knew where she went or why, I wouldn't have asked you to fill in for mayor," Isabelle said. "I know you're not really even close to our mayor, but I was hoping that you could help out the town a bit."

"I tried," Sora said with a smile.

"Thank you," Isabelle said. "Now come on, you-" she was interrupted as a bright light emerged from the center of the back wall, revealing the Keyhole. Sora's Keyblade aimed and with a click, it vanished, and out tumbled a girl with light pink hair.

"Ugh…Isabelle?" the girl asked. She blinked twice. "What are you and a boy doing here?"

"Mayor Belle!" Isabelle said. "This is Sora, he's-"

"I came here to seal the Keyhole and help find you," Sora said.

"Thank you for finding me then," Belle said. "What's the damage? How long have I been gone?"

"Two months ma'am," Isabelle said. "Is there anything you want me to do?"

"Nah, it can wait until tomorrow," Belle said. "Now both of you out of my home." She forced the yellow dog and boy to leave.

"Thank you," Isabelle said.

"No problem, although I wonder how she got stuck in the Keyhole," Sora said.

"Perhaps she went in to protect it and couldn't leave until you did your key thingy," Isabelle said. "I'll see you around sometime, right?"

"You bet," Sora said. A light flashed, and he'd left the world behind.

Closing

Thank you Keyblade132, Kingdom Infinite, Ptroxsora, Ruby Warrior Girl 730, UnknownHero, YamiOverlord, akityro, animebella09, dario. flaman, shadowmwape, xxHinaAngel, Ghost Archer, Nantees, Future-Forgotten, RWBYFF Fan, march4fun, Roger Man, YukiMizuno, and fliggy91 for favoriting this fic.

Thank you Akelly9065, GiygasDistruttoreCosmico, Goupix32, Kingdom Infinite, UnknownHero, Undertaker5, dario. flaman, shadowmwape, startdust902, Nantees, Future-Forgotten, RWBYFF Fan, YoshiStack, YukiMizuno, and Casamora for following this fic.

Thank you to Undertaker5, MetaKnightRoxMySox, I.C.2014, Ptroxsora, koryandrs, dario. flaman, Nantees, and the anonymous guest for reviewing this fic. Almost every word left in a review meant a lot to me.

And finally, I would also like to thank everyone, past, present, and future who read this fic for reading it. Even if I never knew who you were, just the fact that you picked this fanfic to read means a lot to me.

Be on the lookout for Chain of Memories: Video Game Edition. It should be out within the next couple of weeks so long as I remember to upload it, and finish the chapters.

Until next time,

Nicole Peach