The Gummi ship swirled out of control as the asteroids hit it, and Donald couldn't do anything to dodge them, giving them no choice but to try to land on a nearby world. As Donald was landing, one of the asteroids hit the ship hard enough that a big part of it was destroyed.

Coincidentally Sora had not been sitting when all o the asteroids hit, so when the ship kept shaking he was thrown out.

Sora screamed as he fell, and Riku called his name in panic, thankfully the ship had been in the world, so the level of danger was lessened but not diminished.

The ship crashed away from where Sora fell. The moment they were on the ground, Riku unfastened his seatbelt in a hurry and panic then ran out calling Sora's name.

"Riku, wait!" called Goofy, as he tried to stop Riku from getting out and hurting himself in his distressed state.

"Sora!" Riku yelled. He ignored Goofy and ran, blind to the world surrounding them. The two friends were able to finally catch up with the silver haired boy.

"Riku, it's gonna be okay, we'll find him. It's Sora after all."

"Yeah, and he's not alone, so he's gonna be fine," Donald continued and Goofy nodded.

"Panicking isn't going to help anyone, it'll only get you hurt."

Riku closed his eyes and took a deep breath, a small smile came to his lips.

"You're right," he nodded in determination, Donald and Goofy nodded back. The ship, broken as it was could be fixed, now they needed to find Sora.

Said boy was sitting on the ground, leaning on a tree, in immense pain. It seemed that this world was another jungle as giant trees and plants filled the place. Sora's hand clutched his leg, eyes shut in pain.

"Sora?"

"It hurts!" he cried, his eyes filled with unshed tears.

"Can you cast cure?" asked the princess.

"I'll try," Sora said, summoning his Keyblade, but before he could try to do anything, the pain hit him once more. He yelled in pain and dropped his Keyblade.

"It hurts!" he cried again, clutching his leg even more.

"Can't one of you cast it instead, then?" asked Kairi. Vanitas shook his head.

"I can handle the pain, but I'm bad at casting cure, and Ventus won't be able to focus through the pain to cast it," Vanitas explained, and Ven nodded in agreement.

"Then what do we do?"

"I can take control until we find the other three," Vanitas said with a shrug.

"Then you'll be the one in pain. I don't want you to be in pain for me," said Sora.

"Did you forget what I had to go through in my life? It's just a broken leg, I've had worse, you haven't, I can take it from here until we find the others."

Sora didn't say anything, just clutched his leg.

"Sora!" Ven chided.

"Okay, fine! Take control!" Sora yelled in pain accepting the idea, even though he didn't want his brother to feel more pain that he did in his life.

"I'm sorry, Shadow," he whispered softly.

"It's alright."

As soon as Vanitas took control, he took a deep breath, it was painful, yes, but like he had said, he'd had worse. He used the tree to help him stand up. it had been a while since he had felt all this pain, so he walked limping and started looking at his... Sora's friends.

He kept walking, eyes moved around scanning the area around him. Minutes passed by, as he moved scanning every which way. Hearing a hiss, his eyes widened and he froze in place.

"So what do we have here?" eyes narrowed, he glared at everything around him until a giant snake came down. "Another small man cub lost and hurt, what a pity," Vanitas raised his eyebrow looking at the talking snake. Not the strangest thing he'd seen in his life, that's for sure, so he didn't flinch as it came closer to him.

"A giant snake that looks like he wants to eat me, what a bother," Vanitas said monotonously, raising his eyebrow. The snake's giant body started spinning around him, moving in a way to try and distract him, Vanitas' eyes following it, concentration not breaking.

"Now, now, no need for such mistrust, I'm just trying to help," the snake whispered. "My name is Kaa. What's yours, man cub?"

"Vanitas," the boy's tone made it clear he wasn't taking any of this snake's shit.

"Oh come now, don't be like that." Kaa's face came closer to Vanitas', "I'm not going to harm you, you can trust in me~,"

The snake's eyes start doing a very strange thing that made him relax... for a fraction of a second before his anger flared. His arm shot out, grabbing Kaa from by what would be a throat and squeezed. The snake started to choke.

"Okay listen up you sorry excuse for a minion for whatever big bad this world has. I'm not fucking prey, move on before I actually kill you. Am I making myself clear?" Kaa nodded or tried to, fear clear in his face and nervous smile. Vanitas threw the snake away uncaring and moved on, now used to the pain, he walked with confidence. Kaa moved on muttering something about Vanitas being worse than whoever the hell Shere-khan was.

They searched for hours for Sora, but no luck, there was no sign of the spiky haired boy anywhere and Riku was getting more worried by the second.

"Why are there more man-cubs in the jungle?" they heard a voice exclaim. Riku's eyes widened, and held a hand for Donald and Goofy to stay back before summoning his Keyblade, and getting his usual fighting stance.

"Who's there?!" the silver haired boy yelled, before a black panther jumped down from a tree branch and landed on the ground gracefully in front of the three of them.

"My name is Pagheera," it...he said.

"Well Pagheera, are you friend, or foe?" asked Riku not lowering his Keyblade.

"I mean you no harm, if you mean me none as well, but you should leave this place soon before Shere-Khan finds you."

Riku tilted his head, eyes still narrowed at the new arrival, before dismissing his Keyblade, the Panther's eyes widened as the Riku's weapon disappeared.

"Thanks for the warning. I'm Riku, that's Donald and Goofy, and trust me we intend to, but we're looking for our friend. Have you seen him?"

"He's this tall," said Donald as he indicated with his hands.

"With spiky brown hair and blue eyes, wears red," continued Goofy.

Pagheera shook his head, I'm afraid not, but perhaps Baloo or Mowgli have. Follow me, I think I know where to find them."

"Garsh, thanks a lot, Pagheera," said Goofy. The three followed the panther, Riku's eyes shifting, his guard still up, unwavering.

It took almost half an hour to reach... a bear and another human child. Yeah, okay, Riku wasn't expecting that.

"Hey, more man-cubs, seems a lot of them are here today!" the bear exclaimed as he saw Riku.

"A lot of them? Have you seen someone else?" asked Riku excitedly.

"Yeah he had weird fur on, it was black and brown," said the bear.

"Black?" asked Donald.

"That doesn't sound like Sora," said Riku and both slumped in disappointment.

"Brown and black? With golden eyes?" asked Riku, both Donald and Goofy looked up in surprise.

"Yes," Baloo said with a nod. Riku's face beamed. "Where is he?"

"Wait, what? But that's not Sora!" Donald exclaimed confused.

"Actually, it's Vanitas,"

"Huh?" Both Goofy and Donald exclaimed again.

"I wonder why he's the one in control and why for this long though. I hope Sora isn't hurt." Riku thought aloud.

"I don't understand," said Donald, flailing his arms, Goofy nodding in agreement.

"I'll explain on the way. Baloo, was it? Could you point us to where you saw our friends?" Baloo nodded and pointed them to the last place he saw Sora in.

"Alright Riku, explain," said Donald as the three of them headed to find Sora.

"It was ten years ago, when Sora was four, and he'd just let Ven and Vanitas in. You see, I didn't always believe Sora when he talked about people living in his heart, but that day made me believe in anything."

It was on the Play Island, Riku and Sora along with a few other kids were left alone for the day to play there as their parents went back to the main island. They had decided to play hide and seek, and Sora was one of the kids who had to hide. He had found a good place atop a tree that he climbed, and no one was able to find him, unfortunately for the little boy, the branch that he was sitting on broke, and he fell from a very high distance. His leg hurt very much and he started to cry from the pain. Vanitas and Ven tried to comfort him, but to no avail, they weren't there physically inside his heart, they couldn't do a thing to make the pain go. Finally Vanitas got an idea.

"Sky, I need you to listen to me ok? Let me take over, give me consent to take control."

"What?" exclaimed Ven in outrage, "Are you insane? I'm not gonna let you take the kid over are you really that heartless to take advantage?"

"This isn't the time for this Ventus!" Vanitas yelled back.

"It hurts," wailed the child, tears streaming down his face as he grabbed his leg in pain.

"I know, and I can help. Sky, I'm used to pain, let me take over."

"Buh-but, but, you'll be in pain too!" he continued to cry.

"Sky, please," Vanitas whispered softly.

"Wait, hold on!" exclaimed Ven but before he knew it Vanitas was gone, and Sora was there looking miserable. The blond gathered the little child in his arms and hugged him tightly.

"It's okay," he whispered softly,"It's gonna be okay, Sora." Sora nodded, clinging to Ven and returning the hug. Even though he wasn't feeling the pain any more, Sora was glad to get the comfort Ven so readily gave him.

The two watched as Vanitas took control of Sora's body, Sora with complete calm and trust and Ven with suspicion and worry. If Vanitas decided to make Sora his permanent host he had to act and do something, but for now he just needed to be there for Sora while Vanitas took care of Sora's body.

"The first time it happened, I was terrified. We were playing hide and seek, and Sora was good, no one was able to find him," Riku explained, "When he finally showed up we were all relieved, but something was off, something that only I seemed to notice."

"Sora's face was blank. He looked at everyone as if they were total strangers, but he immediately headed towards me, said he didn't wanna play anymore and that his leg hurt. Five year old me was scared as hell, but decided to go along with it at least until I could confront this impostor alone.

The three of them kept walking, Donald and Goofy listening intently to the tale. "When our parents came to get us, Sora exclaimed to his dad that he had fallen off of a tree, and he wanted to see a doctor. His dad laughed, but "Sora" was pretty persistent, and I think even his dad sensed something was off."

"I told them that I wanted to go with them, to make sure Sora was okay, no one protested, even back then I was very protective and possessive of Sora I won't lie." Both of Riku's companions laughed.

"Anyway, we went to the doctors, my eyes not leaving this Sora whoever he was. The doctor noticed that some of Sora's locks were a different color, they had been slowly turning black and none of us noticed. The adults decided that it was a weird trick of the light, and those golden eyes rolled so hard I almost wanted to laugh, but didn't. The impostor noticed my glares - I mean they were obvias to anyone paying attention- and gave me a smirk."

"Half an hour later, we found out his leg was actually broken. Needless to say everyone was panicking, even me, but Vanitas was calm. The doctor said Sora's calmness might be due to shock, but I knew better."

"After he was patched up we got Sora home, and I was reluctant to say goodbye. I needed to figure out what's wrong with Sora, that's when he smirked at me again. He said: You're a good friend Silver, I'm counting on you to keep my Sky safe. My jaw fell to the floor and my eyes were so wide, I was frozen in place until my dad shook me, and asked me if I was okay. There was only one person that would call me and Sora by those names. No one and nothing else could know about Shadow. That's when I believed Sora fully, and decided nothing is impossible, Sora was in good hands now, he was safe and protected.

"The next day Sora was back smile as bright as the sun, even though his leg was broken, nothing could stop that smile from shining. I met Ven that day, a week later Kairi arrived like a shooting star, that's when I decided that one day we can and truly will visit new worlds, with the three of us together, nothing can stop us, and with Ven and Vanitas nothing can touch us."

The roar of a tiger filled everyone's ears, Riku's head snapped to where the sound came from and he started to run. "Riku, wait! Sora might not be there." But the silver haired boy kept running, knowing somehow that Sora, or rather Vanitas was there. When he reached the sound, he saw the tiger give his opponent one last glare and then it ran away.

"Vanitas?!" Riku exclaimed as he looked at the nearly completely black spikes. It didn't look like Sora anymore, the body was more muscular, the face was harsher and the skin pale.

"Silver, Donald, Goofy, am I glad to see you there."

Riku let out a relieved sigh. "So are we. But why have you…?"

"Oh yeah, Sky broke his leg. Can one of you help?" Riku gave him a smile finally, truly relieved that for now everything was alright.

They fixed Sora's leg, and he took back control when the pain was completely gone. It took a while for Vanitas' physical appearance to wear off, as they headed back to the ship. They were able to fix the damage to the Gummi ship relatively quickly with everyone helping.

They left this world and headed to the next adventure to find their missing friends.