So Player joins a union and has a fun cat companion named Chirithy and every wielder has their own Chirithy! The chirithies were created by the MoM to assist wielders and they're tied to a person's heart so if you fall to darkness, so do they, and if you die, they die too. We even get to see a conversation between two chirithies where one says their wielder had succumb to darkness and we literally watch this chirithy die. yeah. Anyway, Player goes on visiting worlds and collecting lux (literally meaning light) and meets a guy named Ephemera! (in english his name is Ephemer. idk why they took the "a" away.) Ephemera is from a different union but you become friends anyway and he tells you that the worlds you travel to actually aren't even real and he wants your help to prove it! Player is severely confused but agrees to help. In fact, Player had a dream the night before about the Foretellers talking to the MoM in a mysterious room and Player and Ephemera decide this must be in the clocktower in the center of town. So then it's time to break into the clocktower! But right when you and Ephemera find the entrance, he says to stop for the night since its late and tomorrow you'll go together. So tomorrow comes and you wait for Ephemera. and you wait and wait and wait and wait and he doesn't come. Instead we see Ephemera going by himself before getting caught by a shadowy figure.
Player continues to wait every day until getting approached by a girl named Skuld. Skuld also knows Ephemera and she's also looking for him! She says that she had a dream with Player in it and thinks she was meant to find you. So you go off and look for Ephemera together! Except every NPC tells you to stop because he's probably dead because wow who would've thought a town inhabited by children fighting monsters was not safe. Anyway, Player and Skuld go to the clocktower and are confronted by [insert the foreteller of the union you're in except if you're in Ava's union then it's someone else]. Insert Foreteller Here says that Ephemera had gotten into the clocktower and that they KILLED THAT GUY!! Totally killed him because fuck those kids in other unions and he wasn't supposed to be here anyway. Player decides to stand up to their master going off on why killing people is wrong because hey that was my friend :( and for speaking out of turn you fight! And then jk its not the master of your union at all it was Master Ava, one of the foretellers all along!!! She has illusion magic so she tricked your ass and she's like "haha sorry <3 I didn't kill ephemera he's fine I just lied <3 he's safe tho I promise I just asked him to take care of something for me," and then she says that there's a war coming that's going to not only kill everyone involved but destroy the world. Ava is currently getting strong wielders together for a group she calls The Dandelions and telling them to run from Daybreak Town before it's too late so light can live on and there's still wielders left to protect the world. Skuld says of course she'll join the Dandelions!!! Player says "no thanks!"
Shit hits the fan pretty fast from here as tensions rise in town. Unions are quickly turning on each other, people fighting in the street, fuck even the foretellers are fighting each other in the street!!! At one point Player even confronts one of these foretellers fighting in the streets and nearly dies fr!! Shit is getting crazy so Player and Skuld decide to look for Master Ava again. She's kinda hard to find tho so instead they go to this other guy Master Gula. At this point, Gula has basically given up, he doesn't give a shit anymore, and just tells Player and Skuld there's no use trying to stop anything especially since Gula reveals to them that there's a traitor among the Foretellers that lead to all of this happening. He says that Ava had went to even figure it out herself by trying to track down their master, who had disappeared before the start of the game. At the same time this is happening, Ava is talking to another guy named Luxu who is also a keyblade master under the MoM but he is not a Foreteller and doesn't have a union or a copy of the book of prophecies. He had disappeared too so Ava is like "wtf where have you been! where is the master! and what is going on!" Luxu answers all of her questions but we don't get to see what he says. Whatever he says makes Ava angry and she attacks him, accusing him of being the traitor, and it's at this moment when they fight that the clocktower rings for the first time and that signals the start of the war. So Gula tells Skuld and Player to be off to wherever they need to be to prepare and they leave.
It's at this point that Player and Skuld run into some weird heartless that look kinda like people and they can even talk a little! A dark Chirithy then appears and tells them that these were once wielders and they've fallen into darkness. Player had actually unknowingly met this Chirithy early in the game where it had given Player a bracelet that "gives them power" (it does not, what it does is collect darkness so this dark Chirithy reveals that Player has unknowingly been using the power of darkness this whole time). Anyway shit gets crazy real fast and this Chirithy absorbs these weird heartless and becomes a huge monster called Nightmare Chirithy. After defeating it, it leaves some ominous words that it wants to meet again in another dream. After this, the Keyblade War finally happesn and Player goes off to fight. You end up fighting every foreteller except your own master and you watch as people die. Yeah. and as Player lays there, literally dying with Chirithy by their side and Kingdom Hearts above, Skuld appears!!! with Ephemera holy shit!!!! Player then wakes up in another world then, saying they had a strange dream, and brushes it off. And mysteriously enough, Maleficent is here now and makes a comment about how Sora can't get to her here. Well that's weird! And this is where χ/Unchained χ ends.
Now I'm gonna backtrack for a second to talk about Kingdom Hearts Back Cover, which is a cutscene movie that shows what the foretellers were up to during All of That (please watch it I love the foretellers so much ;_; ) I won't go into extreme detail but what's important to know is that the MoM had set this shit up very much on purpose. He gave each foreteller a role that was meant to conflict with each other to start conflict so that it would start the war and no matter how hard they tried to stop it, it only got set in stone harder. The big part of Back Cover that's important is that we see the details of Luxu's role: he's given the No Name keyblade with the purpose of staying on the sidelines and watching the war so that the eye on it (the MoM's eye) can see the future and write the Book of Prophecies and eventually pass it down to other wielders to see further in the future. Luxu also gets the mysterious black box (we still have no idea what its for) and MoM tells him to get out. Bye boy,
Anyway now the game is called Union χ [Cross]! I promise later I will explain the titles. So with the foretellers gone, the wielders that are left, who are the group Ava made called the Dandelions, need some guidance. Ava had been instructed by MoM to name 5 specific wielders the leaders of the Dandelions (he had given her a hand written list and circled one person on that list to receive a copy of the book of prophecies. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT REMEMBER THIS). The leaders are: Skuld, Ephemera, Ventus (yes THAT Ventus), a guy named Brain, and-
We see a cutscene of a girl named Strelitzia. She's very shy and sweet and has watched Player from afar and wants to be their friend!! But girl has social anxiety and it's hard. However, we get to see that Ava had approached her and asked her to be a Dandelion leader and she accepts! And now she's forcing herself to talk to Player because she wants to make sure they escape the war. She follows after Player and Skuld when they go to talk to Gula but gets there too late after everyone has gone. So she goes to leave, a little defeated, and surprised she is fucking MURDERED!!!! Yup. Right then and there by a shadowy figure who then takes a book from her that Ava had given her (not The book but it's just a rule book Ava wrote to give to each leader to help them be leaders).
Anyway the 5th leader is a guy named Lauriam. Yes he is Marluxia's somebody. He shows up very late and apologizes because he was looking for something. In fact Lauriam is consistently late to things or just straight up not around because he's "looking for something." So the Dandelions go about their Dandelion business and start going through these rule books from Ava. First order of business: wipe the memories of war from everyone's minds. This is a bit of a debate but the leaders decide that they'll follow the rules. The reason for this is because Ava wanted to prevent darkness growing from sad/hurtful memories. Brain then invents dream eaters. They are so cute :) they literally eat the memories of everyone in town except the leaders. Next order of business: make everyone fight in a PVP arena experience??? Yes this is important I promise. No one is thrilled about this since there was just a fucking war. But Ephemera says that there are these computers in the clocktower that hold data of the entire town and everyone in it so everyone will just fight holograms and not real people problem solved :) In fact he even got this idea from Lauriam who wanted to search the data for.... something.
Speaking of Lauriam, he's meeting up with a girl named Elrena. Yes this is Larxene's somebody. He tells her that his sister Strelitzia is missing!!!! He hasn't seen her since before the war and knows that Elrena is friends with Strelitzia. Elrena hasn't seen her either so they decide to figure it out together. The only lead they get is Elrena's Chirithy saying that according to Strelitzia's Chirithy, Strelitzia was going after. some person. and Elrena's Chirithy saw that person with Skuld (aka the scene where you talk to Gula and then Strelitzia gets murdered but Elrena's Chirithy did not see all that). Lauriam confronts Skuld, she has no idea what's going on, and Lauriam reveals to the others what's been going on and they all try to help him out. Lauriam even meets Player! Player feels bad because they never met her :(
Anyway, it's at this point things start to get... weird. and by weird I mean things are literally glitching out and everyone goes "hey uh why am I seeing buildings glitch and glitches that look like people." Player and Ephemera end up running into these strange glitchy heartless and they run to the clocktower and run to Brain like "hey man what is going on!!!!" Brain is the smart one as you may have guessed. Brain says "yeah actually we're trapped in a data world right now and something is going seriously wrong" and the thing is, they had no idea!! The leaders were aware they had entered but were unaware they never left since the data is so realistic. In order to escape the destruction of the war, the dandelions would go into a temporary dataspace while the world healed and then would leave. This time spent in the data is referred to as an "unchained state" literally unchained from reality-- so while χ (the original 2013 browser game) is the events that unfolded in the real world, Unchained χ (the 2016 mobile game remake) is the dandelions post war reliving their memories and making new happier memories that light can be born from (and Union Cross being the current state of the game where unions don't really matter anymore since the dandelions are all one group so. when the unions. when the unions are crossed. Union Cross was also a multiplayer game mechanic where you could play with real people regardless of union).
Okay here is the ONLY disney thing that matters: wreck it ralph is an original world to khux and it's a data world that was not intentionally made for the dandelions but instead made by "someone else" (it was probably the Nightmare Chirithy yeah remember that guy, it's back again). Well whatever is happening, it's causing everyone to be trapped in the data world now so Brain sets to work on figuring it out as The Computer Guy TM. Brain has a plan (no he doesn't he lied) so he gives into looking inside of the Book of Prohpecies. Yup he was the leader with it all along and actually we already knew this but Brain doesn't make a big deal out of it because he purposefully does not want to read it because he doesn't want to be tied down by a pre-written future. But surprise surprise when he opens it he finds the very list of leaders the MoM gave to Ava!!! See I said it was important. And on that list he sees Strelitzia's name instead of a certain someone (also Ephemera's name is circled he was supposed to get the Book and not Brain). Brain doesn't know what to do so he turns to Ephemera and they decide to confront Skuld and Ventus before going to Lauriam about it. Brain tells them that Ventus was not on the list!!! Ven doesn't understand because he remembers clearly Ava asking him to join (he doesn't actually he has conflicting memories of this moment). No one really knows what's going on especially since thinking so hard literally makes Ven pass out. oops.
While all that was happening- Lauriam was busy inside of the clocktower. Remember I mentioned Maleficent? Yeah she's in the clocktower and in a room that looks just like that one weird room in Hollow Bastion. idk what it's called here's a picture in kh1 and in khux.
(Editor's note: Its in the World Terminus, but the room is called the boring and unmemorable 'Laboratory.' It sucks and we won't be editing that in.)
Lauriam is here fighting with Maleficent. She's like outta my way I'm getting out of this fucking computer! Lauriam is like haha nice try! (He gets his ass beat and Maleficent hops into a pod and bounces from the data world). This actually is the plothole that ties up how Maleficent returns in kh2 after being killed in kh1. She even reveals in khux she learned time travel tricks from Xehanort and that's how she even ended up in khux in the first place because when she was killed and her heart seperated from her body, she went into the past.
Anyway, Lauriam returns to the where everyone else is and walks in right as Brain is saying that Strelitzia is probably dead. Obviously he flips his shit. Brain had proposed the idea that some kind of darkness was manipulating them and trying to turn them all against each other. Ventus helpfully (read: unhelpfully) enters the room again and says "hey I killed Strelitzia btw" because he fully remembered that. Yeah actually that happened and he was there when it happened-- Ventus was manipulated by a shadowy figure that is just called "Darkness" and took refuge in Ventus's heart to enter the data to destroy the dandelions.
Pausing for a minute to talk about Darkness. In flashbacks we see the MoM explain to Luxu that there's more than just regular ol darkness and heartless but a kind of older, sentient hivemind type of darkness, and this is the Capital "D" Darkness. It's something that keyblade wielders have been fighting for a long time, the MoM explains he's seen many masters killed by Darkness. MoM's whole goal in fact is to kill Darkness for good! At this point, Darkness had split itself into 13 parts. His plan this whole time has been to trap Darkness in order to destroy it. He does this in two ways: the first was to train his apprentices to have insanely strong hearts and reveals to Luxu that himself, Luxu and all the foretellers literally have pieces of Darkness within them. Okay so that's the first 7 pieces; the rest he baited into going into the data world by starting the war and having it follow the Dandelions and then trapping them in the data. How does it work? Well when Maleficient escaped, it started the data locking mechanism that will shut down the data Daybreak Town and after that no one can escape.
Hey that's bad because that's where we're at now lol so back to the Dandelions. Ventus confesses to murder, Lauriam is about to commit a murder, Brain is losing it because he's figured out that's what the darkness wants. Darkness (or at least one piece of it) appears now!! Bursts right out of Ventus and is like "lol hi guys yeah I totally murdered that girl <3 no reason why I just wanted to do it" so the Dandelions (and Player who is also here btw) fight Darkness! It's too strong tho so Ventus decides since this is "his fault" he'll choose to lock the Darkness away in himself and "turn it to light" (spoiler: this is implied to be how Vanitas comes to be). So Ven saves everyone but now the actual issue: the fact that they are running out of time VERY FAST to escape from the data world. Also Elrena shows up again and says she saw Strelitzia with a mysterious figure (maybe Luxu? we don't know). They don't have time to talk about it tho.
Here's the problem tho: with Maleficent taking one pod and one pod getting destroyed in the fight her and Lauriam had, not everyone can escape. What they decide on is Brain, Lauriam, Elrena and Ventus leaving while Ephemera, Skuld and Player stay behind. Brain also hands over the book of prophecies and his keyblade (the master's defender!!) to Ephemera. Ephemera, Skuld and Player get to have one fucking second of peace before just a bunch of pieces of Darkness show up to kill them. Darkness demands to be let out of the data. Ephemera says no. Player says "you fool" and Darkness has taken a hold of Player!!! The final fight in the game is you fighting Ephemera and Skuld. Yes it hurts so much. It also hurts when Ephemera shoots Player right in the stomach and sends your ass back to wreck it ralph along with the pieces of Darkness. And as Player lays dying, they reveal to the Darkness that they just pretended to be taken over by it, and now they're all trapped in god damned wreck it ralph together. So as Player dies and the data world locks itself and presumably destroys itself, we see Chirithy and Player have a conversation about what happens now. We see the other Dandelions who couldn't escape dying, their hearts reform and combine with their chirithies to become dream eaters. Yeah. like in DDD. Those cute animals are dead kids. And Chirithy says to Player they can choose to become a dream eater, or have their heart reborn. Player chooses to have their heart reborn (it's not clear in game but the person Player is reincarnated into is the new Player in Missing Link and goes on to raise Xehanort as their child; we are shown scenes of Xehanort as a baby in Scala ad Caelum being handed off to Old Player 2 by his mom who looks like Skuld idk man).
Back to the Dandelions-- Ephemera and Skuld escape the data at the last minute. Lauriam and Elrena end up presumably without any memories and are scouted in Org XIII by Xigbar (who we now know is Luxu). Ventus is found by Xehanort. Ephemera ends up in the middle of the ocean and goes on to found Scala ad Caelum. Brain ends up in Scala ad Caelum but long after Ephemera has passed and presumably this is where Missing Link begins. Skuld's fate is unknown but there is a strong possibility she's Subject X. Strelitzia is now in Quatratum, somehow, along with the MoM who also purposefully is there bc there's a scene where he tells Darkness that's what he's doing.
But let's circle back to Brain rq-- because when he left the data, he didn't actually go on immediately and instead sent Lauriam, Elrena and Ventus to safety. In fact, Brain was willing to stay behind in destroyed Daybreak Town by himself but he's actually confronted by Luxu of all people!!! Luxu had followed the Dandelions this whole time because he wanted to protect them! And he says it's a shame Brain will die here. It's not clear what happens next but it's implied that Luxu takes Brain as his first vessel (personally I think Luxu sent Brain's heart to the future in Scala ad Caelum while Luxu took his body). We finish khux on a scene with Brain in a black coat, with No Name and the black box.
