Author's Note: I made a minor UA (universe alteration) to make the story work in that Gretchen Grimlock is not at Erewhon Prison in this story.

Reviews are always welcome! :) Please note that I may not update for a while, as I started school not long ago.

I looked about my surroundings with confusion; I had not expected such a fate as this, even though that pilot had given me a strange feeling; moreover, the rain severely inhibited my visibility, making the whole situation seem more ominous. Why did he send me here – to a desolate little island with an imposing tower and barbed wire? A shudder came over me as I remembered the way Myron van Buren deceptively "rescued" me.

As I usually do, I started to inspect the island for clues. Most of the time, when I have been to different islands, there have been people who have told me what the problem was, but I was alone on this little rock. The secrecy of the place, along with the barbed wires, suggested that it might be a prison, but what government could keep track of it when it was in the middle of the ocean?

There was nothing around me that could tell me anything– no inscriptions on rocks, no letters in bottles, no fragments of cloth, nothing. Even after I had trudged around the whole island and climbed the rocks to the cliff where the tower was located, I could see nothing but the tower itself and grass with nothing interesting in it. Finally, I looked up and froze; I was looking straight into a security camera. Apparently some government did monitor this place, for my original thought that it was a prison seemed to be correct. What other sort of place would have security cameras? Out of habit, I started to chew on my gum. It is what I have always done under stress.

The building was too tall to climb, which made sense, in a way. Of course they wouldn't want anyone to be able to climb up to a cell and free prisoners. There was a rock to the right of the security camera, which seemed like a bad thing from the likely perspective of the prison warden, but which was very good for me. I jumped onto the rock– I've jumped onto much harder rocks, so it didn't feel like a challenge– and then jumped onto another rock, which was on the other side of the security camera. There were no other rocks to jump onto, so I was confused as to why there had been two rocks that were so well-placed. Not knowing what else to do, I touched the taut bricks of the tower.

As if on cue, a Poptropican-sized rectangle of bricks went behind the wall and a door replaced them. I couldn't help smiling. Poptropica had a certain logic to it that pleased me; everything somehow made sense, and whenever I went through an island, there were just enough charming gadgets and dei ex machina to make me feel like I was in a movie. This was one of those moments.

I knocked on the door, but no one answered. After a few minutes, I heard the voice of a middle-aged woman from inside: "May I please wash my hair and change my clothes, sir? I wouldn't want to introduce myself looking like this."

The answer was harsh: "No. You know we don't afford any such luxuries to your kind."

The woman immediately acquiesced; I could feel it in her shrunken tone. "Yes, sir. I understand."

My first instinct was to think she was weak, but I soon thought better of it. She was evidently a prisoner. Still, I couldn't imagine a better-behaved inmate. Her voice was familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on where I had heard it.

I heard footsteps advance toward the door, and soon it opened. To my shock, the woman on the other side was none other than Black Widow. She was tall, as I remembered her to be, with wide brown eyes and a face that could have been pretty were it not for her ridiculous makeup. Her expression was not nearly as menacing as it was when I encountered her on Counterfeit Island– if anything, she seemed to be deferring to me. This sickening sweetness is all an act, I thought with a grimace.

"What do you want with me?" I asked tightly, chewing my gum more quickly than before.

The Black Widow frowned. "What do you mean?"

"A helicopter pilot led me here and told me to jump; I don't know how I survived. I still think he tricked me. And then I hear you talk about 'introducing yourself' to me. How am I not supposed to think that you knew about this and planned it?"

She looked more and more hurt as I continued to speak. With even wider eyes than before, she began to hyperventilate a little. The closed-mouth smile that formed on her face was, I could tell, meant to mollify me. "I… When I'm outside my cell, I'm supposed to do things that engage my mind, so Harv– Dr. Hare and I built this machine, and–"

"And what, Black Widow?" I asked, glaring at her. A machine, with Dr. Hare's involvement? She probably wanted me, the one who exposed her art theft, to be the guinea pig so that she could trap me in there forever.

"My real name is Lucy Dunn," she whispered, on the verge of tears, as if to say that she was a human being too, "and we were just hoping that one of the staff would be kind enough to test it out. When I heard a knock at the door, I felt a little glimmer of hope…"

"Lucy Dunn, you say?" I don't know why I walked inside at that point, but I did. There was a sign in there that said Erewhon Prison– I immediately saw the pun. Erewhon was nowhere spelled backwards, so this prison was even more obscure than nothingness.

"Yes. In the machine, you'll get to know all of our real names…"

"What exactly does this machine do?"

"I'll have Dr. Hare explain it in the room where it is."

Soon, I found myself in a dark room filled with tubes; Lucy had gone away to fetch some others. There was what looked like a portal against the back wall, and it glowed a teal light. I could see that the portal had some buttons on it; I did not know what they were for, but from the number of them, it was certainly a complex machine. Dr. Hare was standing next to the portal, his goggles replaced with round glasses. He was wearing ordinary clothing– a dark red sweater and loose black trousers– which surprised me; and his red hair had a greenish cast against the light from the portal. Far from the crazed countenance I had once seen him have, he bore a serious, emotional, and reflective expression.

"I thought you were lost in space," I said, breaking the pregnant silence that he created with his demeanor.

"I once was," he answered quietly, "until I took shelter with Mordred. When he was caught by the PBI*, I was caught with him, since they recognized me."

"I hope you're not offended by my question," I began, "but why are you acting so normal?"

A faint laugh escaped from him. "No, no, you didn't offend me. Mordred couldn't handle having me on his planet in my former state, so while I was sleeping, he reprogrammed that machine that turned him into a cyborg so that it would take away the rabbit DNA in me. The next night, in my deepest sleep, he put me in the machine, and I came out normal… I cried for hours when I remembered everything about my life…" He said the last sentence with fanciful passion, which annoyed me. He didn't have to be so emotional about it.

I must have looked awkward and uncomfortable with feelings– I don't know what I did, but whatever it was, he seemed hurt. Wow, he and Lucy were both so sensitive! "Never mind," he said.

I decided to just move on. "Anyway," I said, "what exactly does this machine do?"

He looked down at it. "Well, Lucy and I wanted to make something personal that would reflect" – he descended into his philosophy again– "our own individual and collective histories that, I think, reflect who we really, truly are as people beyond what the world has labeled us. 'Villain.' The word is totalizing and leaves no room for complexity. No one is all bad, and some of us are quite misunderstood and have rather messy stories–"

I rolled my eyes. "What does it do?!"

"It's a portal," he gulped. His tone was coldly formal, but he was obviously upset. "It will take you back in time to go inside of each of our minds and experience our lives. As you go through each story, you will be able to heal us from the inside by becoming one of the only people who has seen all of us for who we are." That sounded like torture. But I suppose I've been through worse. After all, anything was better than being the target of a would-be cannibal and having to go inside a virus.

"I see." Perhaps he might be right– I suppose seeing someone's experiences would help a person to understand others. Still, it was frivolous. "But why build an entire machine just to do that?"

When I said that, Lucy walked in with a few others: a now-blonde Betty Jetty, the Binary Bard (also known as Mordred), and Copy Cat. She looked completely different– somehow, in the span of about fifteen minutes, she had washed her hair, taken off her makeup, and put on new clothes. Her hair was now long, soft, and brown; and she was wearing a simple lavender blouse, a light green skirt, and blue flats. She looked very 'natural.'

"After you go through our minds," she answered, having heard my question, "you'll be able to help some of us on this side of the portal." I felt somewhat better now; that was what I was good at doing.

"Now," Lucy said to the whole group, "why don't we all stand in front of the portal and say our real names, so Miss…"

"Striped Lizard."

"So Miss Striped Lizard knows what to call us."

Dr. Hare began. "My name is Harvey," he said. "You'll learn more about my family history when you go inside the portal." The last sentence was said with the characteristic internal pain.

Copy Cat went next. "I'm Cathy," she said flatly. "My story is not very interesting. I was just a typical teenage girl."

Mordred said, "You know my first name already, and a fair portion of my history, but my last name is Orkney."

Next was Betty Jetty, who, with a surly, commanding voice, said her name. "I am Charlotte Waters. I don't know why everyone calls me Betty. The two names aren't even related–"

Harvey stopped her. "That is quite enough." Lucy didn't speak for a moment.

"Fine, I'll stop," Charlotte said insincerely. "I think Gretchen came up with that awful nickname. She thought it sounded cute on me because I was short."

"Speaking of which," I said, suddenly a little disturbed, "where is Gretchen Grimlock?"

Everyone looked at each other wistfully; even Charlotte looked a little bit sad. "No one knows," Lucy sighed. "We lost contact with her decades ago."

"Maybe I'll be able to heal her, too," I proposed.

"I don't know," Harvey said, "we had to rely on our memories of her and create an experimental program for her mind that takes abstract information from all of Poptropica. You might not see a completely accurate picture."

"That might be true, but I might also be able to see where she was when she last contacted you. I thought I saw her on Cryptids Island! I remember her clearly! She had pink spiked hair and a scar! Why are you all acting like she disappeared?"

Harvey looked down. "All I can say is that there's a lot more to her life than that."

Everyone was silent for a moment, and I looked at the portal. "Should I just go inside the portal?" I asked, looking at Lucy.

Lucy lit up. "I need to just tell you what's going to happen first. You're going to feel very strange, and it'll take some getting used to. First, you will oscillate through our minds as you see how we were the day before we went to Poptropica High; then, your perspective will change more slowly as the events warrant it.

"Sometimes, you might switch perspective after something happens to one person and 'go back in time,' if you will, to show what was happening with another person while the previous event was happening. You will remember the other perspective in your own head, but you won't be able to use it to inform how your current person acts. Then, it'll cut to after both (or all) of the events have happened. You might feel like you're on a ride when you go through this.

"Also, keep in mind that you will go through what will feel like many years, but for us, only about half an hour will pass, so don't worry that we'll leave or grow impatient, because we won't."

I nodded. "Thank you, Lucy. I understand."

"Well, without further ado…" Mordred said. "Why don't you go inside?"

"I think I will. I'm not afraid."

"Good luck, Striped Lizard!" said Lucy. Then, with a few tears: "Please don't fail us. We're not that different from you, you know."

Harvey pressed a big yellow button that had an exclamation mark on it. All of the buttons brightened, and I reached my hand inside, letting it pull me into its deep, psychedelic time warp.

*PBI: Poptropica Bureau of Intelligence