3rd Day

Who's Roxas? Do we know him? Does he live here? Is he from out of town? Does he know Hayner? Why did Hayner call me Roxas? Are we related?

Waking up from another dream, Fusa opened her eyes and carefully sat up on her bed in her pajamas. She was thinking about the previous day and how it made her confused. Out of thought, she simply scratched her head and looked out at the window for the town and its warm sunset. Perhaps she could forget about it when she would joins her friends at the Usual Spot. Once she thought of that, Fusa was able to get out of bed and dress in her usual outfit quickly for the day.

Once dressed in her outfit, putting her silver locket necklace around her neck, and putting her boots on, Fusa paused and snapped her head to the window to see if there was someone below. She thought that, for some reason, the man in black from the previous day was there again. That, and she thought she heard the sound of a heartbeat as well. Nonetheless, she figured that she must have been hearing and seeing things that do not make a lot of sense at all. She shrugged and finished getting dressed, eventually grabbing her backpack and making her way out of her home. She figured that a trip to the beach would make her feel better.

Upon arriving to the Usual Spot, Fusa noticed that her friends were no-where to be found at all. At first, she was a little worried that someone, maybe the man in the black cloak, had taken them for ransom. Then she noticed a note on the dark yellow furnace and walked forward to see what it says. A ransom note, she wondered a little. Luckily, she gave a sigh of relief when she read it.

Then she began to read it:

"To Fusa,

We're going to try heading to the beach today. You can bring Vivi along if you want to. No worries about the munny- we'll loan a bit from our parents and the rest will go the pretzels. If there's enough, then I'll buy us a quick surfing lesson for you and me. Meet us at the Central Station for the trip before the day ends!

Hayner"

Fusa gave off a smile when she read it, mainly because Hayner was allowing her to invite Vivi due to her promise to him. Perhaps it would mean making peace with the rest of the Committee as well. So, she grabbed her pencil and a piece of paper and jotted down a response to the note and put it down before heading out.

It read as followed:

"To my friends,

I'm going to be picking up some sea-salt ice cream and heading over to the train station to meet up with you guys. I'll pay for the train tickets, pretzels, and surf lessons galore. I'll bring the ice cream so that we wouldn't worry about buying some at the beach.

Like you said yourself, 'Friends never forget each other. We can never forget each other in our hearts. Even when things look bleak, we would always remember the good times we share.' I will always keep it in mind.

Fusa

P.S., let's not forget to invite Vivi as well!"

With that, she turned and left the Usual Spot, heading to Market Street without a worry in the world. In fact, she was planning on getting the sea-salt ice cream as promised. When she ran out, however, a couple of the grey creatures waited in the shadows in secret, just watching her. Rather than going after her, they went the other direction, where a man in black was leaning by the wall, just waiting.

At the ice cream shop in Market Street, Fusa approached to the front and took out the munny pouch out of her backpack and took out some munny to buy some ice cream. The owner of the shop placed four bars of sea-salt ice cream inside a bag and gave it to her. However, she knew that Vivi would like one, so she held up one finger and nodded her head, indicating for one more. The owner understood and added one more bar of ice cream into the bar, then gave her the bag. She handed him the munny and accepted the bag, putting the pouch in the backpack, thanking the owner, and heading away to the Sandlot to meet up with Vivi.

As she made her journey to the Sandlot, Fusa stopped in the Back Alley, when she thought that she heard someone close by. She figured that it was impossible to even think of It, since there was no one there. Or at least until she saw something in the corner of her eye that made her stomach twist. Below in Market Street, there was many people walking around, yet they were still as time has stopped. There was no sound, no motion, and no answer as to why this happened. All time seemed to stopped, all except for her.

She looked around with growing paranoia, thinking that she could be next in this strange phenomenon. Then she began to walk quickly to Tram Common to find the Committee to get Vivi so they could go to Station Plaza and meet up with her friends for the beach trip. That's when grey creatures suddenly appeared from the ground along with grey with violet lines and spikes on their wing-like arms. Fusa held tight to her bag of sea-salt ice cream and grew more frightened by the sight of these creatures trying to get to her. But why they weren't attacking her escaped her for the moment. Why she couldn't run kept her frozen with fear coursing in her veins. That, or she couldn't risk provoking the creatures to attack her when she ran.

That's when a dark portal appeared from the wall and a man in black with his hood up walked out of it. Fusa turned her head to the side to see who it was and dropped her bag out of panic. She knew, with a bad feeling, that this was not the same figure in black as the previous day- he had narrow sleeves that fitted his arms and his body was lean as well. This was a different man entirely.

"Looks like the rumors were true- there is someone else here," the figure spoke as he stopped upon coming out of the shadows to reveal himself in the sunset light. Fusa backed away a few steps out of fear that he would attack her. "I was going to get Roxas first and pick you up, but since I'm in here, I could twist the objectives for a bit."

Wait, he knows who this "Roxas" person? Fusa thought to herself as her breath hitched with fear.

"I would give you the full details, but we won't have time for a bit of Q&A," the man in black stated as strange circular weapons appeared in his hands like flames. "You're coming with me, kid, conscious or not. Mostly alive, though. Don't try to run away; otherwise I'll have to do it this the hard way." He held the weapons in his hands by the blades.

Fusa grew frightened that he would get the creatures to attack her. Yet why would he need her alive? And why would he need this "Roxas" person? Are they both targets in this little hunt? Before she could do anything, the man held his weapons in one hand and snapped his fingers for the creatures to attack her. They twitched and charged at her, squiggling into the air quickly towards her. She gasped out of fright and started running away, but became dog piled by the creatures. She was outnumbered and not strong enough to get them off of her. They were wrapping her body limbs and head, all except for one arm free. A few wrapped their boneless arms around her head, to which some type of energy was being drained from her.

"Someone help me, please…" she pleaded in repeats as many more collectively dog piled her more and blocked her light. Her voice could not carry out in an echo when she made her pleads. She felt like she was being crushed to the ground and thrashed down, pressure being applied to her body. So she was resorted to scream out her possible one last word as she reached out for help: "HEEEEEELP!"

Before the creatures could wrap around her free arm, Fusa felt something in her hand, much like the Struggle bat handle. Yet the texture was smooth with the touch of leather. A beam of light surrounded the creatures and they were thrown off of her, knocking them out temporarily. When the light was gone, Fusa was free; yet she was holding in her hand a key-like weapon with a magenta shine that could be mistaken as copper. The guard of the key had a light violet color, the rainguard was dark violet, and the teeth of the key resembled the outline of a disconnected heart. It had a long magenta keychain extending from the hilt with a heart token at the end of the chain. She was in awe by what she was seeing, yet could not understand why she had it.

Once the creatures were conscious, they twitched up and went after her again. Fusa had an idea to distract them and threw the weapon to the ground before running off quickly. It worked, for the creatures stopped to examine the weapon, distracting them. The man in black, however, watched her run off and teleported out of the area. Once Fusa was gone, the weapon disappeared in a flash of light, making the creatures confused.

As Fusa continued running, she was trying to find where the Sandlot was located in. The hard pressure on her body was forcing her to wind down, yet she continued to budge to continue in hopes to find the Committee to find out what was going on. She realized that something was wrong: her memory of the Sandlot was blank. She didn't know where it was now. She didn't know what those creatures did to her that caused this. However, when she tried running again, she felt like she was being driven to the ground again.

There was no other choice but to find a place to hide and to think things through so she could figure out what was really going on. So Fusa rushed over to the closest wall to hide behind and had her back to the wall, breathing hard yet trying to keep herself silent. The grey creatures were wriggling in the air, trying to find her, as if they were thinking that she went ahead. When they were gone, she gave an exhausted and quiet sigh of relief. Now all she need to do was to get the map out and find the Sandlot so she could do something of importance. It was on the tip of her tongue, yet she didn't know what.

Before she could get the map out, however, a strong force hit her by the back of her neck, causing her to fall to the ground unconscious. It was the man in black, who located her when she arrived to hide. When she fell, he shook his hand out and walked forward to examine his new captive. He took hold of her jacket, to which she slumped over, and carried her unconscious body over his shoulder.

"I did warn ya," he quipped as he opened up a dark portal with his free hand, using the other to hold the unconscious girl. "Besides, we're getting out of here and your head is going to be clean from everything that no longer matter now."

Then he entered into the dark portal, carrying Fusa with him, and they left the town for good.

An alarm went off in the computer room, where DiZ was in, when he saw what was happening to Fusa inside of the virtual town. His free eye of an orange color widened with horror in the midst of his calm demeanor. He realized that she was taken out of his creation, the only sanctuary where she could be safe until the time comes. Now he felt helpless to get her back from the man in black.

He stood up from his chair and walked away to give himself some time to think about what happened. That's when the man in the black cloak, the one from the previous day, teleported from the other virtual town. DiZ snapped his head to him with a hard glare yet knew that it was pointless to lash out at him.

"The Organization found out about the Newborn Nobody and sent that meddling redhead to collect it," he stated to the figure, looking away. "Those pesky Dusks took out the implanted memories and tracking device. Now they are deemed worthless without the one to hold them in. I wanted to get it out and let it join Roxas, but that would mean damaging the healing process."

"What about the town you created for her?" the figure asked him, unfazed about what has happened.

"I'll have to rewrite the area to make a different location for Roxas to play in, remove all data that is in it, and erase anything that holds prove that she ever existed in it," DiZ answered, going back to sit down in front of the screens. "There are, however, a few things I want to keep as souvenirs. Bring me the letter it made for its 'friends' before I reconstruct the area's code."

Before the figure left for what he needed to bring, he paused and inquired to DiZ, "About the girl… what brought you to the decision to allow her in there in the first place?"

"Ask me about it later," he answered, waving off the question. Inside, however, he felt hurt by what has happened. He only hoped that the girl would be all right.

In the Gummi Ship, Gremlin Gus was searching for Traverse Town on the map close to the wheel as Max fiddled with his skateboard, pretending to hit enemies with it. In the reflection of the break proof glass window, Gus only chuckled at the young Knight's actions. He figured that the young lad needed to kill boredom in the meantime. He gave a sad smile to himself that Max, despite his youth, missed his father dearly, despite the many times the Captain seemed to turn him red in the face.

A sight of a globe world caught Gus's attention as he halted the Gummi Ship and circled around the world. He saw that it was in cool browns with dim lights aglow in it and building sticking out like sore thumbs. He read on the screens that it was Traverse Town. Max looked up to see the world and his eyebrows furrowed with confusion.

"What's the matter, lad? Never seen a world like this before?" Gus quipped humorously with a chuckle.

"No," Max answered as he turned to the Gremlin pilot. "I thought it would look like an actual town, not like a planet with splinters."

"I didn't come up with the world's design," Gus joked before chuckling to himself, much to Max's embarrassment. This type of embarrassment reminded him too much of his father, which made the young Knight slightly sad about it. Gus stopped chuckling and patted the lad's shoulder out of reassurance before turning ahead to grab the wheel and flew the Ship to the entrance of the world. All they needed to do now was to wait for Yen Sid's final word on the manner.