Since I just noticed this on Alexis' page...I'll do one too.

Mali Nevey: Teen from Pe Island who controls soft drinks, in all forms.

Mali was born and raised on Pe (pronounced pay) Island, located near Destiny Island. Pe Island was an extremely technologically advanced society, exporting fancy electronics to other islands and countries around the world; Mali always had the newest toys and grew up tech-savvy. One day, a computer programmer noticed a bug in some monster game, but really had to meet his girlfriend for a hot date and couldn't sit there fixing dumb kids' games all night long. It'd be fine, right?

It was not fine.

Overnight, the island, was overrun by Heartless, fanning from the building where the programmer worked. Many people died. Many ran off, trying to escape to Destiny, only to find out that it had been destroyed by the same threat months ago. Why hadn't they heard? What had happened to their news feeds? No one knew. At this point, it was after-the-fact knowledge--people were too busy trying to save their families to worry about the past and another island. Mali's mother and sister got off the island and on the open ocean, where the electronic-based Heartless couldn't travel. Mali's older brother Kenslen, who was one of her best friends even among people her age, stayed to help some of the young men on the island try to fight off the enemy. Mali, fearing for her brother, stubbornly refused to accompany her mother and sister on the boat and stayed to fight. The men were her brother's childhood friends, most of them; they watched over her as if they were Kenslen clones. Until a few days after the invasion, Mali had never encountered a Heartless in battle. The men dwindled in number, until it was Mali, her brother, and his best friend left with hearts still their own.

Being the only ones left, Mali, Kenslen, and Max, Ken's best friend, decided to patrol the city. About a mile out from their base, the group split up, with Max off on his own. They were fine for a while, until a large, previously-unseen Heartless jumped off a building above them, knocking Kenslen unconscious. Mali was left to defend herself. THe only weapon in the dark alley she'd been backed into by the larger creature was a dented, rusty soda can. Resigned to her fate, she picked it up and readied herself to throw it at the dark creature's face.

In her hand, the dented little can turned into a key-shaped weapon, all by itself. The key pulled her toward the Heartless's large body, clearly more suited to the task of defeating it than the soda can. She followed the slight tug in her arm, and struck in a wide circular sweep.

A few more slashes, and the creature was gone, evanesced into a dark, grainy mist. And so was the key, wonders. Gone into light and code. Mali searched frantically for Kenslen, who was nowhere to be found--until she saw him still unconscious on the street, swarmed by lesser heartless. They'd gotten him, too. Mali ran over, refusing to believe it, smacking off the small darks with her reappeared key. Her brother couldn't be gone. No. He couldn't, couldn't, couldn't---

She took the stupid-looking key-thing and drove it into her own heart.

For a few moments, she floated in a black void, unknowing, unseeing. The world flowed back in sluggishly, blurrily. Like watching solvent travel up a piece of chromatography paper. Ken swam into view above her, concern on his face. "Are you okay, Mal? Mal?"
Ken hadn't lost his heart; Mali had overreacted. Her heart had been returned, but at a price; she'd gained a Nobody and Heartless, that, while unbeknownst to her, existed now in the world.

Ken followed Mali to the nearest safe outpost, but she went on alone. Where had the strange dark invaders come from? What did they want, other than the lives of her family and friends? Was that all? She sat in her boat on the open, endless sea, contemplating. Where was she even going?

Without warning, a dark hole opened in the fabric of the universe, undoing all Mali's traditional notions of the word 'universe.' For a second she was in that dark she had fallen into without a heart, and then her boat ran aground. Ground? No, rather more...asand. The portal had taken her into the middle of a vast desert. She wandered until the sun set, hot and using her rowboat for shade during the day and freezing cold after the only light and heat sunk below the horizon. Oh, did she want an electric personal air-conditioner. So useful in the desert. By sunset, she was cold, hungry, thirsty, and tired. Very, very tired. In the distance stood...a giant glowing tiger head? Could this be a mirage? It had to be a mirage. Giant glowing tiger heads were not natural inhabitants of the desert. Were they? Mali had never been to the desert before. In any case, she decided to check the whole thing out, considering that key thing would pop up again, and if it could defend against those dark things, it could certainly take on an oversized fluorescent tiger, right?

Right?

Right.

The tiger head had been beaten to submission, and Mali soon discovered it was a creepy mobile building. She couldn't find any wires, anywhere; the one device she'd brought with her picked up no signal, and there was no sign of any other source of power. Hmm. She'd already discovered that not everything could be explained by science and reason, but this was too much for one day. When she came around to the face side of the now-frozen head, she noticed something: the mouth had fallen open. Should she walk inside? There was a strange warmth and light emanating from inside the mouth, which, like the rest of the head, had gone dark and sandy. Was this in fact some clever trap courtesy of some creepy alien tiger head monster that wanted to eat her? This wasn't even her universe! Who was she to say things worked the same here? Maybe...maybe giant tiger heads that looked like sand sculptures when you bashed them to a pulp ate little girls. Still, she was tired, cold, and there could be food and water in there. Darn it, she would take the risk, scary aliens or no.

Inside was indeed a warm, cave-like building. With water. Oh, science, water. Good clean water, according to her detector. She gratefully drank, scooping the liquid up in her hands. Water, water, water. Mali was infinitely glad water still existed in this universe. That her atoms still existed in this universe. This strange, desolate universe, seemingly devoid of all life.

(i'm all storied out, guys. this is gonna need a part deux. birthday on thursday! if you love me, make me things. ali, help me with this part after?)

Clubs