Since you demanded it, so it shall be written! A continuation of "Reaching the... Understanding", parodying the game as a whole!

Birth By Sleep Endgame Spoilers from the get go! I mean seriously, first line even. It'll make sense, trust me.

~~~ As I Remember It ~~~

Prologue

Terra stood in the crossroads of the Keyblade Graveyard, ready to welcome his fate and end things once and for all with Xehanort, along with anyone else who dared threaten his friends.

Someone was approaching. He looked and without much surprise saw that it was Aqua. She walked up to him without breaking her stern glare, but at the last moment she looked away. "I was told... the Master was struck down."

Terra breathed in sharply, hanging his head in sorrow. "Yes. That's right. I was stupid and helped Xehanort do it."

Aqua stared at him, unable to speak, in shock as Terra went on.

"The Master – He tried to hurt Ven. I only fought because I wanted to protect him," he said. "But I was tricked – Xehanort set the whole thing up. He wants to awaken the darkness inside me... I went astray... but no longer."

Aqua sighed, fearing for her friend and lover who seemed so distant right now. "What else is darkness, but hate and rage?" she asked earnestly. "Xehanort is feeding the dark fires within you... making you fight."

"No. I won't rely on that power," Terra insisted.

"Oh really?" Aqua asked, almost angrily, marching up to him "Then you wouldn't mind me flicking through your Command Deck, hmm?"

"W-woah, hold on!" Terra began, but before he could switch decks Aqua was somehow examining his current one.

"Zero Graviga," she announced.

"It's good crowd control!" Terra said defensively.

"Transcendence," she went on.

"I really like crowd control!" he insisted.

"Dark Haze," she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, that's..." Terra flailed for an answer. "Uh, I'm hoping to fuse an Arc Solum..."

"Chaos Blade," Aqua said pointedly.

"T-that's only until I can re-fuse a Sonic Blade..." he said lamely.

"Sacrifice," she said, crossing her arms.

"I... I was using EXP Chance! Oh, hey, look, it's Ven!" Terra said, quickly changing the subject as he saw their other friend approach.

Aqua narrowed her eyes, making a mental note not to drop the issue, before turning to see her other boy approach, a lost look on his face.

"Xehanort wants me and Vanitas to fight, and make some kind of... X-Blade," Ven told them, his eyes averted.

"Keyblade?" Aqua frowned.

"No, X-Blade. With an 'ex'." Ven crossed his fingers to show the shape. "I'm pretty sure that the 'ex' is important."

"So... ex-keyblade?" Terra frowned.

Ven's eye twitched. "No, you say it the same. Like Keyblade."

"So it's a silent 'ex'?" Aqua asked, curious.

"Look, does this really matter?" Ven asked. "The important part is that it's really freaky and I might be forced to make it... I... I don't want that to happen, so –"

"Hmmm... Oh! Like Christmas!" Terra realised. "You know, how it can be shortened to X-mas?"

"Would you listen?" Ven snapped, exasperated.

"That's actually pretty clever naming..." Aqua mused. "I wonder if it'll show up in the future?"

"Just kill me..." Ven sighed dejectedly.

"Ven, relax, we're joking," Terra said, placing his hand on his friend's shoulder. "We're not going to let anything happen to you, ever."

This only caused Ven to sigh deeper. "I'm being serious. If I have to fight Vanitas, please... put an end to me."

His friends gasped at his request, but saw he was serious and unwilling to negotiate.

Then the winds shifted, bringing with them an ill omen. They quickly turned, looking down the final path through the Keyblade Graveyard to see, approaching in the dust and haze...

A tumbleweed.

"Huh. For a second there I thought it was Xehanort," Ven said sheepishly, sounding relieved.

"He must be watching from somewhere..." Aqua said, her sharp eyes darting around the wasteland. "Don't drop your guard... not even for a second..."

~~~{R}~~~

Flash forward... three hours!

"I rolled a three..." Terra said in a bored voice as they sat around the Command Board.

"Okay, you landed on a bonus panel," Aqua said with a yawn. "Do you want to pay some GP to obtain it?"

Terra nodded, fighting back a yawn himself, then looked at Ven. "Your turn."

"There had better be a good reason that son of a frick hasn't shown up," the blond Keybearer growled, snatching up the die with a vengeance.

~~~{R}~~~

"Master... soon, their fates will be sealed..." Vanitas chuckled darkly in the ether of the Lanes Between.

"Indeed," cackled Xehanort as his apprentice travelled beside him towards their destination in subspace. "Soon, all my ambitions will be fulfilled – I will forge the X-Blade, usher in the Keyblade War and, with this frail shell of mine replaced, I will finally see what rests beyond the end of the world! Vanitas!"

"Yes Master!" the masked boy turned eagerly towards him.

"You know what this situation calls for, do you not?" Xehanort said, anticipation in his voice. "Only one world can satisfy my desires at this glorious moment!"

"Uh... The execution of the final steps of-?"

"ICE-CREAM!" Xehanort boomed, interrupting him.

"What are you..." Vanitas began, turning to see Disney Town fast approach. "Oh for the love of crap..." he groaned, burying his masked face in his hands.

The two dark figures strode down the streets of Disney Town as the masked boy shook his head, his mind blank. "Is this why you had me create Prize Pods? For this?" Vanitas finally asked, his already tenuous hold on sanity beginning to slip.

"Quiet you. Now," Xehanort turned to the duckling at the counter. "I understand you make ice-cream out of ingredients here? Well, here is more than enough," he announced, plopping a hefty bag onto the counter.

Huey opened the bag, looked inside and nodded. "Just a sec."

Just a sec later, Xehanort gave a dark look at his dessert before taking an experimental bite. "Yes..." he whispered, savouring the flavour. "This ice-cream..." He stood, a mad grin consuming him. "It contains ALL THE FLAVOUR OF DARKNESS!"

"Uh... can I try...?" Vanitas began, only to be cut off by as old master devoured the rest of the ice-cream greedily.

"What did you say it was called?" Xehanort asked the ducklings after he had calmed down.

"A Big Bad Pete," Dewey replied, eying the old man. The ducklings smiled, a collective glint in their eyes the colour of munny. "Would you like another?"

~~~{R}~~~

"Seriously, where is he?" growled Ven, eyes straining to see through the desert of keyblades.

"You know what?" Terra said, standing up and dusting himself off. "If he isn't going to show up on time, I don't see why we should just sit around waiting. C'mon, I know a sheltered spot not far from here."

Aqua and Ven nodded, seeing his logic. Better to be rested before this final battle than to waste more energy playing the twisted master's mind games. Leaving the command board behind – Ven giving it an unwarranted kick – they followed Terra down through the dead key-lined path, into a sheltered clearing inside a ravine.

Aqua's eyes narrowed, suspicious. "Wait... this is exactly the place I passed..."

"Me too..." Ven said, confused. "I actually camped out here for a while..."

"Wait, so we just missed each other? But the path is a straight line!" Aqua protested. "We all came from different directions!"

There was an eerie silence for a few moments. "You know what this means, don't you?" Terra asked.

Aqua nodded. "This place is haunted."

The three shared a glance, then grinned together. "Awesome!" they said in unison.

Ven laughed, dropping onto the ground. "Okay, if he doesn't show up before tonight, I vote we tell ghost stories."

"We never get any sleep when we do that," Aqua protested.

"Only because you get so spooked from the stories you sneak into one of our beds for the night," Terra pointed out with a smirk. Aqua sent him a withering glare and he raised his hands defensively, the grin still proudly on his face.

A strange silence fell down on the three of them, and a sober mood stole the smiles from their faces. They had so much to say, but no words seemed right.

"So... seen those stickers floating around?" Aqua said, in a lame attempt at restarting conversation. "Have either of you been collecting them?"

"Religiously," Terra and Ven replied in the same instant. They blinked, then turned to each other with huge grins on their faces. "Seriously? You too?" Still grinning, they turned to Aqua expectantly.

She just shrugged, self conscious. "Well... not really..."

"You haven't been checking your sticker album?" Ven gasped.

"W-well, I didn't exactly get anything good, so it's a low priority..." Aqua admitted.

Terra shook his head disbelievingly. "Who cares about the prizes! They're only part of the fun!"

"I can't believe you haven't been keeping up to date," Ven said, giving her a critical look before brightening up. "Ooh, Terra, let's see yours! My one has ice-cream!"

"My one is a racetrack!"

Aqua stared at them for a few moments before bursting out laughing. The two boys turned to her with confused looks, but she just waved her hand. "No, no, go on, really," she sniggered, trying to compose herself.

Ven looked over at Terra for advice, who just shrugged, equally lost.

Unfortunately, once Aqua's giggles receded that silence returned – lighter, but still present. There was so much untold, so much unexplained between them...

"It's almost funny... in a completely unfunny way," Ven said sadly, breaking the silence once more. "We were always one step ahead or behind each other. We should have had this journey together." Terra and Aqua looked away, slightly ashamed of leaving him behind, considering all that had happened. This went unnoticed by Ven, who was still looking at the ground. "How did it all... get like this? So tangled up?"

There was silence as the three of them chewed over the question, until it was broken by Terra clapping his hands together.

"Well, I can't speak for you two," he said, an optimistic grin tugging on the corner of his mouth, "But, as I remember it..."

~~~{End Prologue – Keyblade Graveyard}~~~

Varanotes: Hey, that's the title of the story! Neat!

At first I was torn – how do I capture that character interaction between the three that I love so much in a recap fic where, by all rights, they should be separated? This was one of the main reasons I wasn't going to go ahead with this fic. I'm glad I figured out a work around.

Next chapter will be them discussing what happened at the very beginning, in the Land of Departure. And fear not, most chapters will be longer than this one. This was just the prologue, after all!

Truth be told, I don't know how often I can update this. College is damn near all-encompassing for me, and 'Fail to the King!' is my main story that I'd like to devote most of my spare time towards.

But hey, sometimes the funny demands to be written.

Thanks for reading, now hit that review button!

Later,

-Varanus