It hadn't been hard for Warren and Nori to find their way out of the cage. In fact, there was an unlocked door. It was that simple. The problem was that, as soon as they got out of that cell, another one fell from the ceiling to cover them. This one was just as easy to get out of. They quickly realized that the cages were leading them someplace specific in a crazy maze of directions. Oddly enough, in the end, the path led straight to the door. On the door was a computer screen with a handful of Japanese words.
"Well Nori, you're the one who reads Japanese. What does it say?" Warren asked.
Nori said a few words from the screen under his breath, translating, "Something like: 'Are you sure you want to do this? Yes or No.'"
"This seems much too easy."
"No kidding…so push yes?"
"Wait! What if it's some sort of trick? Like it'll give us the option we don't select," Warren suggested.
Nori thought for a while before saying, "Then we push no, right? The worst they can do is lock us up again. 'You don't want to leave? Okay, you can stay here forever.' Right?"
Warren shrugged. Nervously, Nori took a deep breath and pressed the button meaning "no." They somewhat expected to be instantly detained, or at least the door to open. Instead a Japanese message flashed across the screen.
Once again, Nori translated, "Too bad. Have a nice day. Touch screen to begin."
"Well," Warren shrugged, touching the bottom right corner. "If that's all that happens, we should try 'yes.'"
The same question reappeared, and they pressed "Yes." The door slid open, revealing Xemnas on the other side with a smirk on his face. Just as Nori and Warren frowned from his expression, one more cage dropped from above. Then, the cage was lifted onto a balcony that Xemnas also floated up to. He directed them to look out at the path they had followed through the room. They stared in shock at the pattern that had been created. It was a word, spelling, "Roxas."
Then, Xemnas held out a piece of paper and explained, "Congratulations on finding your way to the door. Of course, I never promised making it there would spell your freedom. In fact, you've just signed your friend's name on a contract saying he'll work loyally for us as long as he shall live. What good friends you are. So much for a rescue mission, right?"
Warren and Nori were completely stunned by what had just happened. Neither could do more that stare as Xemnas walked away, leaving the two of them in the cage, guilt flooding over them both.
Roxas was just starting to get to the good parts: sea salt ice cream with Axel, pancakes on Thursdays, learning to play Demyx's sitar, the time he and Xigbar got sent to Las Vegas on a mission—what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas! Not like they did anything bad there…but it brought a smile to Roxas's face. Vexen watched the whole process intently. He could easily tell which were the good memories and which weren't.
Sometime after Roxas had merged with Sora, when Roxas had a heart, he stood in a dark field of grass, crying as the rain poured around him.
"What the—" Vexen began, but it wasn't because of the tears streaming down Roxas's face. Some sort of terrible machine had emerged from the chair Roxas was sitting in, grabbing him on all sides and beginning a horrible procedure. Vexen knew what was happening. After all, he had designed the machine. The question was: why? More importantly, why then, right when Roxas was starting to get his memories back? He sighed, slightly disappointed, and left the room. There was nothing he could do about it now.
Demyx was about to leave the top of the castle and rejoin someone higher in status than he was when something odd caught his eye. A pink blob representing someone's heart floated out of the castle up to Kingdom Hearts. He frowned to see it. After all, everyone who lived at the castle—besides Lionel who had no real heart—was a Nobody. Nobodies were supposed to be heartless. Where could it possibly have come from? He intended to find out.
The first person he saw when he returned to the castle was Axel, who greeted, "Whoa Demyx. Where have you been?"
Not wanting to explain the whole thing, Demyx replied, "With Roxas." Axel nodded, suddenly in a bad mood. Noticing this, Demyx continued, "Are you still mad at him? You, know he didn't know any better. You were the one who said he couldn't remember us."
"No, he didn't remember you guys. He remembered me just fine. He knew we were best friends, and he purposefully used that friendship to help his plan. That's what I'm mad about."
Demyx was surprised by that. Scratching his head, he noted, "Whoa, I didn't know that."
Turning to walk away, Axel said, "Well yeah, we never really were friends."
After a second, Demyx followed, adding, "So you know how I was with Roxas? Well, I got in trouble for it, and now I have to stay within sight of one of my superiors at all times."
"And?"
"And I was hoping I could hang with you."
"Have fun trying to sleep with someone like Lexaeus in your room," Axel mocked, continuing to walk away.
"Axel," Demyx begged, "you're the only one of my superiors I actually like."
Axel stopped for a second, just to raise an eyebrow at Demyx.
"Not like that," Demyx insisted. "You know what I mean. I can't survive through even a week of being continuously followed by one of them."
Still not exactly agreeing, Axel waited for Demyx to catch up before he continued walking to wherever he was planning on going. He never made it there, however. Along the way, he was once again interrupted when Demyx saw Roxas walking towards them. Roxas seemed a little more serious than normal. Even so, Demyx waved.
"Hell-o Roxas," Demyx began, sounding goofy, "have your memories returned yet?"
"Good day fellow denizens of nonexistence," Roxas returned, more harshly than normal. "My memories are none of your concern."
"He's just as grumpy as you are," Demyx muttered to Axel, as Roxas continued walking past.
Even Axel was surprised—and a little concerned—by Roxas's comment. Watching Roxas quickly heading away, Axel added, "That's not good. What happened to him?"
"Nothing…as far as I know. He was acting just fine a couple hours ago. But then…no never mind. It couldn't be that."
"What?" Axel demanded, interested all of a sudden.
"Honestly, it was a stupid idea. It has to do with hearts, and you always make fun of me when I say we have them."
Axel laughed. "You think Roxas just 'lost his heart'?"
"Well, the thing is," Demyx explained, "I saw one today—a heart—floating right out of the castle."
At first, Axel seemed intrigued, but he quickly got a hold of himself, countering, "That could have been anyone."
"Coming right out of the castle," Demyx insisted. Roxas appeared again, at the end of the hall, deeply engrossed in what looked like an extremely important conversation with Luxord. Pointing to the two of them, Demyx continued, "Did you see the look on his face? He's obviously changed, right? He looks exactly like the original six members, you know. Determined to do nothing but fill Kingdom Hearts. Why don't you and I have that same look?"
Axel didn't respond—he was deeply considering things, though—so Demyx continued, "The original six, obviously don't have hearts. They act that way…and now Roxas is acting that way too. The connection is: all of their Somebodies are dead. What if we really do have hearts until our Somebodies die?"
"Roxas did always make me feel like I had a heart," Axel mumbled to himself.
"Now, the only question is: how are we going to solve the problem and fix Roxas?"
"The only way to release his heart is to release all of Kingdom Hearts," Axel explained, "if that is indeed the problem."
"Then, that's what we'll have to do," Demyx decided.
"What? No," Axel argued. "I would never do that! Not even for my best friend turned traitor, turned best friend, turned traitor, turned brain dead, turned superior—or whatever he is. He is not more important than our whole purpose in life."
"I know you really want to."
"No…even if I did want to, how would you intend to do so?"
Demyx thought for a really long time before a wide smile spread from ear to ear. "The game."
"What?" Axel questioned in confusion.
"You know, the game," Demyx described, gesturing widely. "Kingdom Hearts. The way we were all created. 'Cuz remember at the end? Sora defeats us and releases all the hearts. If we can defeat the game, we can defeat it in real life, right?"
Axel seemed frustrated to even be part of the conversation as he added, "Do you realize what you're saying? Just think how much trouble we will be in just for having the game in our possession, much less actually playing it! How would you plan on getting that past the door? How would you even acquire that game?"
Thoughtfully, Demyx paused for a long time. After a moment, Axel finished, "Yeah, that's what I though," and walked off again.
Demyx chased after him suggesting, "Well, we could go down to earth, the real world—where they sell the game."
"It's that simple?" Axel asked mockingly. After Demyx gave him a disappointed look, Axel stated, "If you wanna try that, go right ahead. What you do is none of my business."
"I cant' go there without you Number VIII. I can't go anywhere without you."
Axel looked away, trying to avoid giving in. It made a little sense, but he still wasn't ready to take the chance until Roxas rudely brushed by once more, still completely consumed by this suddenly important conversation. Roxas had even started wearing his hood up. Axel watched him walk away, clearly pondering all the options.
Eventually he decided, "All right, let's do this, but if anything happens…" He trailed off at the end.
"I know, I know. My fault. We'll do it all in my room. No worries, right?"
"Right," Axel mocked, "we'll just hide everything under your dirty clothes…Now here's a question for you," he continued as they walked toward the exit, "how do you get through the gate to earth?"
"I don't know," Demyx replied, but they kept going anyways. Nothing was said until they reached, and passed, the big green hole outside the castle. Out of the blue, Demyx thought of something. "You know who would know? Pinocchio. I heard he went there and came back alive."
"Uh…well, we've got not better option, I guess."
They headed toward Pinocchio's house, completely not noticing the confused Nobody that they walked right past. He looked down at his hands, then his boots, his cargo pants, his striped polo shirt, the large strands of lavender and teal tipped brown hair falling across the bridge of his nose…Not many people got the privilege of remembering the day they experienced the phenomenon of coming into existence. It would have been more phenomenal if he had a heart to add to his existence, but the young anime man was still in awe about discovering everything he'd been given—two big brown eyes, a nose, ten fingers, and that tattoo on his arm of a swan kissing a snake in the shape of a 'P.'
The only thing he seemed to not have was a name…a name and some sort of memory of where he was or how he got there. Curiously, he looked around for anyone with answers. He saw the giant dark castle and figured someone might be home. When he walked toward it to knock, however, a burst of light grew out of the big green hole. As he shaded his eyes, a strange feeling came through him, and a golden scepter appeared in his hand.
Once again confused and in awe, he just stared at the scepter and the three circles at the top that resembled the head of a mouse, as he asked himself, "What does this mean?" Just goofing off, he swung it around like a sword, finally stopping with it pointing toward the castle. Somehow, the door unlocked, and a bridge appeared across the green hole. At first, he was frightened, but, after a shrug, he walked across.
I woke up in the dark, the faint light of stars glowing on the ceiling. Was I in my own room? The covers around me on the bed felt very familiar. At first, I thought someone had recreated my room in Fiction-Land. With a sigh, I realized it was actually more likely that everything had just been a dream. I was exhausted anyways, so I just let myself drift off to sleep again.
When I woke up the next morning, I went about my morning like nothing had happened. Then, Dusty dashed into my room. She had planned to go straight to my computer and back to Fiction-Land, but when she saw me, she stopped short.
"Tiara!" She exclaimed in shock. "So you got brought back too?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, I was right in the middle of kissing Warren Peace," she continued excitedly, but then she lost her enthusiasm, "when I suddenly ended up in bed. What happened to you?"
"Warren Peace?" I questioned obliviously. "How did you meet him?"
"Oh yeah," Dusty remembered, "you didn't know. After CrawFish caught you, Nori came to tell me, and I followed him back. We know where Tia Dalma is, and we set out on a rescue mission."
I laughed, "Yeah, I was there when they told you guys were Tia and I were."
"Tia and you? You were there together?"
"Uh-huh…until I ran away with the guard boy to rescue his dragon, and we were lost in the forest in the rain when I got sucked back here."
"Oh, I hope he's okay. Nori was hanging off the edge of a waterfall when I left."
"He was hanging off the edge of a cliff, and you were making out with Fireboy?" I demanded furiously.
"It wasn't as bad as it sounds."
"Well there's one way to find out," I decided, quickly making my way to my computer. Opening up Nori's file, I typed, Hey Nori, what's up? Are you okay? but no response came.
"Hey Nori, what's up? Are you okay?" Nehemiah announced through the high school gym locker room. After a second of surprise, Nori walked up and down the rows, looking around—since that had been the last saved direction I had given him. He wanted so bad to answer my question, knowing it was me, but didn't know that he could.
Nehemiah continued, "Nori? I know you're there, or Writers' Block wouldn't be letting me type anything. Please, just say something."
Another silence passed as Nori wandered, 'contently.' Actually, he was far from content, but the story wouldn't let him show it.
The tension began to build on our side as well, until Dusty came up with an idea. "Why don't you try a different character Tiara?" She asked.
"Like who? Nori was my only character really involved in this," I replied.
"Chiyo."
"Chiyo? But she's dead; Nori said so."
"Uh...yeah that would be a little hard 'cuz she was there when I was there."
"No? Really? You guys found Chiyo! How exciting that must have been," I exclaimed, quickly typing in, Then Chiyo entered the room saying, "Nori, Tiara's trying to get your attention."
Still, no response. A second later, however, the words, "What are we doing here?" Chiyo asked, appeared on the screen.
"Tiara, why'd you write that?" Dusty asked.
"I didn't," I answered honestly.
"Nori shrugged," Nehemiah continued, "because he apparently didn't understand, so Tiara decided to ask Chiyo instead, 'Is everything okay?'"
"Everything is fine from my end," Chiyo replied—Nehemiah had to say all the non-dialogue parts. "MIah and I found a boy who knows how to find Tia Dalma's shack. We were almost there. About Nori, though, I don't know."
I read the message Chiyo had left me on the screen and inquired of her, Well if you can talk to me, why isn't he?
"Nori," she whispered, "you can talk you know…just try to say something. I learned it from Roxas once…Tiara needs to know how your end has been going, and I'd like to know too."
"Me too," Nehemiah chipped in, trying out the new discovery for himself.
"Um…" Nori began slowly. "We, uh, made it to the Castle That Never Was, to get Roxas, but something went a little wrong…We're working it out, though…kinda."
Tiara then mentioned, "Dusty and I are at home—safe. We can't get back…for now. Dusty would like to know who Warren is doing with his 'transformation.'"
"Well, actually," Nori responded, "ever since he kissed her."
"They kissed!" Chiyo exclaimed. "Why do I miss all the good stuff?"
Suddenly, Mom called from downstairs, "Girls! Is that you I hear up there?"
Gotta go, I typed in really fast, but it's nice to hear everything's going relatively fine. Then, I saved and exited, joining Dusty to go explain everything to our parents.
Chiyo and Nehemiah popped back to where Hallom had once again been left alone in the pouring rain. It was just in time, too, for them to throw a few Three Musketeers around and rescue him from the Hubabaloos. They lifted him between them once again, and this time his feet actually moved—as slightly as it was. After walking for what seemed a few moments, they came across an endless sea of water.
"Uh…what now?" Nehemiah wondered pessimistically.
"Walk through it," Hallom answered softly.
"Are you meaning to say we can wade across that entire ocean, riptides and all?" Chiyo questioned.
"Just…trust me," Hallom reassured. "If you don't, then make me go first."
The two looked at each other and stepped closer to the sea. They still didn't walk through, but they had gotten close enough for Hallom to reach his hand out through the gelatinous wall that looked like water. When Chiyo and Nehemiah realized what it was, they laughed embarrassedly. All three walked through together to a bustling, tropical rainforest on the other side.
Chiyo looked behind them to the wall of water, mentioning, "Well, that's why there's no island on the map."
"Keep moving," Hallom said, "straight ahead."
They complied, following Hallom's instructions through the strange forest until they saw the shack across a river. Then, Chiyo realized, "You can't swim yet, can you?"
Hallom shook his head. "Make sure you go straight. There's a hole on the right side of the shack…under the water. You have to come back the same way, or…or you won't find me here."
"What do you mean?" Nehemiah inquired.
Hallom just shrugged. One explanation was enough for the day. Neither Nehemiah nor Chiyo was completely comfortable with the arrangement. After an awkward exchange of glances, a decision was reached.
"I'll stay here," Chiyo stated, "and wait with him. It shouldn't take two of us to get her now."
Hallom sighed and slid to the ground to rest as Nehemiah swam away.
Warren and Nori were thoroughly bored once they realized it was no longer possible for them to escape their cage. In fact, there probably would be no point in even mentioning them if Roxas hadn't walked by. He seemed to have a purpose when Nori first noticed him and called his name. Roxas stopped to stare at them for a while. When Warren repeated his name, Roxas randomly bent over to take his shoe off.
He returned with the picture, demanding, "Are these two you?"
Nori smiled. "Roxas, you remember!"
"I'll be back in a second," he said, walking off.
The two prisoners were excited—one that they had found their friend, and two that it seemed he would come back to let them out. Boy were they surprised when Roxas came back a moment later. He slapped a pink, bunny-ear headband on Nori's head, and dumped a whole can of beer over Warren.
Dropping the can to the floor, he tossed the picture at them finishing, "There, we're even." Nori and Warren watched in humiliated shock as he turned to walk away. Things were more serious than they thought.
"I had never imagined a PlayStation could be so…expensive," Axel complained as the two of them reentered the castle. They had managed to smuggle a television, PlayStation, controllers, cheat book, and the game itself into the castle and halfway to Demyx's room.
Demyx laughed. "I couldn't imagine you could be mobbed by so many crazy girls who just wanted to hear you say, 'Got it memorized?'" Demyx mocked Axel's voice and characteristics. "Why couldn't any of them have asked to hear me say, 'Dance water dance,' or, "we do too have hearts,' or, 'silence traitor,' or any of the other memorable things I say? Just one. That's all I ask!"
That brought one of Axel's famous smirks. "Chicks dig fire. That's all." Then, he jokingly added, "Got it memorized?" just to spite Demyx. "Plus, I'm your superior, and I'm not voiced by a baby cat from a children's movie."
"Right, it's always about your sexy voice…Well, it sucks in French."
"Does that make you feel better?" Axel wondered, chuckling.
"Yeah, sorta. Now, let's get this stuff to my room before we get caught."
As they walked on, they passed by Nori and Warren. Demyx stopped, which made Axel stop. Axel raised an eyebrow at Nori's ears and Warren's soaked face. That brought Demyx to burst into laughter. In turn, Axel laughed too.
"What are you doing here? And like that?" Demyx stumbled out through his laughing.
"Well, we came here to get Roxas out, like you said he wanted. But obviously he changed his mind," Nori explained.
"Why did Roxas do that to you?" Axel questioned. Nori picked up the picture and showed it to Axel. Upon seeing it he continued, "But you all look happy. It makes no sense."
"It must have something to do with the secret 'bajumba' mission," Demyx whispered to Axel. Then, he turned back to Nori and Warren to assure, "Never fear. We will fix Number XIII." He held up the Kingdom Hearts cd case.
"How is that going to help you fix this problem Twirp?" Warren demanded skeptically.
"Be silent ignorant ones and just believe. You know nothing of these issues." All three laughed quietly at what Demyx had just said, so he continued, "Come on Number VIII; let's ditch these losers."
Warren looked like he was trying his hardest to keep a straight face, so Nori asked, "What d'ya think?"
He just let out a slight chuckle.
Nori shrugged. "At least they're not just sitting here."
Warren glared at him.
"What?"
Nehemiah easily made it into the shack, at which point, Tia Dalma promptly asked, "Who ahr you?"
"Nori's narrator Nehemiah who's come to rescue you Your Highness," Nehemiah responded respectfully.
Tia wisely decided to ask a question only a friend of Nori's would know, inquiring, "Who wuz it dat originally eentroduced Nori to me, eh?"
After pondering for quite a while, Nehemiah eventually replied, "It…must have been Mr. Miyagi. That's where he learns everything important…and that's where he'd supposedly gone when he first said he saw you."
"Dat works," Tia Dalma agreed, adding, "how do you intend to get outta here?"
"I have help outside. Come on, let's go."
He led her back to the hole and straight back to where he'd come from. He was worried when he first came out of the shack because he couldn't see Hallom or Chiyo. As he went straight back to them, however, they miraculously appeared. Tia smiled to see Hallom, until she saw how much pain he was in. She clearly thought Chiyo and Nehemiah had done that to him.
To counter that theory, Hallom smiled. "You always knew we'd get out."
Then, she understood. Chiyo helped Hallom to his feet, and he once again began to direct them—this time how to get off the Island.
