Neverland
First Appearance: KINGDOM HEARTS (2002)
Origin: Peter Pan (1953)
Roxas is ordered to venture into the world of Neverland for the first time on Day 174. It is the 8th world he is sent into, and he travels there on his lonesome in order to take down a Wavecrest. Once there, he encounters Captain Hook and his loyal first mate Smee who are busily digging for buried treasure following the instructions found on a pile of maps they found lying around. The current treasure, similar to a dozen or so they had dug up prior to Roxas's arrival, is nothing but a worthless piece of junk buried in the ground. Hook is frustrated they are wasting time going for the false treasures while someone else gets away with the real one, and no sooner does Hook finish that thought do Heartless appear, drawn to the Darkness created from Hook's greed and selfishness.
The Captain and Smee make their escape, leaving Roxas to eliminate the Heartless without being noticed. Roxas then turns to inspect the "treasure", and is rather confused at the Heartless' appearance next to it. He suspects Hook had to do with it, as he seemed "off", and so he approaches their ship. It's then that Tinkerbell flies along, inducing in Roxas a flash of the boy in red who apparently also met Tinkerbell before. She urges him to follow her to the ship, and as Roxas lacks the ability to fly, she grants it to him. Roxas believes Tinkerbell he can fly and a vision of the boy in red comes to him, showing him how to do so. The sensation is curiously enough familiar to Roxas, like it wasn't the first time he flew. To top it all, it seemed Tinkerbell believed in him, as though she knew he'd be able to fly with her help. Despite this, however, Roxas decides to follow his orders - which are to eliminate Heartless and do not include following Tinkerbell to Hook's ship. He completes the mission thanks to being able to fly, and is anxious to share with Axel and Xion the news of the event.
This would not be the last time in which Roxas refused to follow Tinkerbell, and on the next mission to Neverland he is accompanied on his mission by Axel on Day 195. Axel recognizes the world as the one Roxas flew in, yet Roxas at first is unable to fly. He realizes he needs Tinkerbell's help, but while they are grounded, Axel and Roxas notice Hook and Smee nearby, digging up more Heartless. They retreat to the ship and decide to fire the canons. Roxas fills Axel in on Hook and Smee's story, and they decide to check the spots already dug at in the hopes of finding their targets - being Artful Flyers.
They find Tinkerbell at the site, who is enraged at Roxas for bailing out on her before. She decides eventually to help the two fly in the hopes they would help her this time. In an attempt to follow Roxas's example, Axel tries to fly, but fails. Roxas encourages him, and believing in his friend's words, Axel is able to fly, much to his own surprise and excitement. Being the level-headed and trust-worthy one, however, he stops Roxas from following Tinkerbell once again, and the two go about completing their mission while dodging cannonballs shot from Hook's ship. Once the mission is over, Axel and Roxas RTC, right in time to miss Pete's entrance to the scene. It seems the maps Captain Hook found were placed by Pete in order to fuel the Captain's greed, and by doing so, Pete could rally an army of powerful Heartless drawn to that greed! However, no Heartless are found, as Roxas and Axel took care of them.
Several uneventful visits later, Day 300 presents Roxas with a difficulty to complete his mission, as not only is he unable to fly - Tinkerbell is captured by Captin Hook and Smee! In a display of loyalty to the fairy that helped him before, Roxas decides against going along with the mission until Tinkerbell is safe, and he infiltrates the pirates' ship. It seems Hook has been tearing apart every map that proved to be useless before heading on to the location shown on the next map. He believes that amongst the fake maps is one that leads to a real treasure, and that the "dummies" were a means of protecting it. Therefore, if he kept making Smee dig - he will get his treasure.
Tinkerbell in the meanwhile is held captive inside a lantern on Hook's desk in his cabin, and Roxas has to wait until Smee and Hook leave before he can release her. Done with that, Roxas turns away in order to return to his mission, only to be stopped by Tinkerbell. The fairy flying right up to his face induces a momentary vision of the boy in red, which makes Roxas stay with Tinkerbell for a while longer. They discover the map pieces Hook no longer had interest in, and Tinkerbell helps Roxas fly once more so he could look into the spots marked on the maps. Roxas collects the rest of the pieces from across the ship and digs at the appointed spots, only to find no Heartless. He realizes Hook was the one who drew the Heartless and he tracks him down, and true enough, the Heartless Hook dug up was the Phantomtail Roxas was sent to exterminate.
Pete appears just as Roxas leaves again and reaches the conclusion that if despite how much Hook has been digging, there aren't Heartless nearby - someone must've been taking them out. Pete then decides to turn to his final resort - offering the Captain a real treasure to get greedy over, for him to summon a Heartless to fit.
The final battle on Neverland takes place on Day 301, where instantly upon arrival Tinkerbell rushes to Roxas's side and grants him flight in order for him to reach Hook and Smee. The two are digging up the "treasure" buried where the last map they have left led to. True to Hook's suspicions, the final map led them to true riches in the shape of a decorated treasure chest filled with valuables and several weapons made of solid gold. Hook's greed grows and is absorbed as Darkness into the treasure, giving birth to the skeletal dragon Heartless fittingly named Ruler of the Sky. Hook and Smee run away, thus clearing the stage for Pete to make his entrance. Enraged at Roxas's interference with his plans once more after what happened between them in Agrabah, he commands the Ruler of the Sky to attack Roxas. After a long and grueling aerial battle, the Ruler of the Sky is defeated and its captured Heart - released, but not before the beast crashes into Hook's ship and destroys it, much to Tinkerbell's amusement. Pete, defeated and enraged, escapes the scene, and Roxas is free to RTC from Neverland.
