Wings of Avalon: Funny that you use the word fishy, and you'll see why in this chapter haha! Meli agrees with you!

Jake Hallows: You are definitely on the right track with your ominous predictions!

coolmegan123: Yeah, I don't think Riku really realized that he needed that conversation. Despite obviously avoiding Ansem, he wouldn't ever admit to anyone, even himself, that there was trauma there. He'll be able to start healing in that area now, though, maybe without realizing that, either. Oh, and I'm glad you enjoyed the awkward phone call angles, I enjoyed writing them lol. Ansem is an old man, he's still trying to figure all this stuff out, and it brings me great joy to headcanon Riku as a total dad when it comes to electronics.

Hope everyone has had a good week!

Chapter 23

Perspective – Meli

The lunch did nothing to change my mind about the newcomers. In fact, it only served to make my suspicions grow. I stayed silent for most of the time, only giving short answers to questions when they were directed at me, and kept shooting irritated sideways looks at Riku, trying to get him to see how weird all of this was. He was completely engrossed in conversation, though, and never noticed. As soon as lunch was over and we were on our way back to the mansion, I grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him back behind the rest of the group.

"So?"

He looked down at me with a strange little smile that made me think he was amused by me. "So...what?"

I rolled my eyes. "So, did you notice how weird they were?"

Riku laughed aloud. "No, I can't say I did. I still stand by my statement that they seem perfectly nice."

Groaning, I stopped in the middle of the road. "Seriously? You didn't notice anything fishy?"

He stopped, too, turning back to study me. Finally he gave a little sigh. "No, I didn't. But I'd like to hear what you noticed."

"Well, first of all," I began, thinking back to when we arrived. "Invi was like a sneaky little...sheep herder, the way she got us all to sit exactly where she wanted. Like, I don't even know how she did it, but somehow she had everybody all arranged and sitting down without anybody noticing or questioning her."

Riku furrowed his brow. "But we were all sitting with our doppelgangers. The arrangement made perfect sense."

"It was still weird," I insisted. "Then the next thing was, they never said a single world to Ven the whole time unless he went out of his way to insert himself into the conversation."

"Okay, kinda rude of them, but he was the only one there who wasn't a doppelganger, so I can understand why they weren't as interested in talking to him."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Are you telling me it wasn't the same way with anyone at your table?"

He opened his mouth to reply, then shut it and truly considered the question. "Well...now that you mention it, they didn't really talk to Kaj at all."

"Aha. I knew it."

"But...Kaj is a pretty quiet person. He didn't really try to talk to them, either."

I simply raised an eyebrow, seeing that he was still thinking it through and waiting for him to come to his own conclusion.

After a moment he continued. "That still doesn't really give them an excuse to not at least attempt to talk to him. He's Ira's doppelganger as much as I am. Maybe it's because he's not a Keyblade wielder? We were talking about Keyblade stuff most of the time."

"Did they ask him if he was a wielder?"

"Um...no. They didn't." Riku's shoulders sagged a little. "Okay, you got me there. It doesn't make sense."

Satisfied, I moved on. "Also, I assume they brought up their 'plan' to save the world?"

"Uh, yeah. Something about getting ahead of the darkness so that none of the universes have to fight it anymore?"

"'Something about', exactly." I waved my hands in front of me to emphasize my point. "There were no details whatsoever, no one knows at all what this 'plan' actually is, but everybody at my table – except me – jumped on agreeing to help right away."

He sighed. "Everyone's tired of fighting, Meli. I know you don't remember, but this has been going on for years now, and I'm not expecting it to stop anytime soon."

"So you're just going to agree to help people you don't really know with a plan that you definitely don't know?"

"I..." He stopped and ruffled the hair on the top of his head with one hand. "Okay, maybe we all agreed a bit too quickly. But that doesn't mean we can't back out if it turns out to be a bad plan." Stepping forward, he gripped my shoulder gently. "I'm not gonna rush into this without actually knowing what's going on, I promise."

I gave a noncommittal grunt and turned to begin walking again, Riku falling into step beside me. There was more, but I didn't know how to explain it. Something in the way that Sora and Terra had acted once the subject of 'the plan' came up that was just a little...off. It had to do with feelings, though, and even if I had known what to say I didn't figure he'd believe me.

"Isn't it a little odd that both tables ended up talking about the same thing?"

He huffed a laugh, still apparently amused by this whole thing. "Not if they knew we were Keyblade wielders ahead of time, and knew they needed our help. They probably agreed to talk about it today."

"Did they know we were Keyblade wielders ahead of time?"

He stayed silent for a long moment. "I...don't know. They...seemed to assume it today, but...I don't remember it coming up in conversation yesterday."

I pointed a finger at him. "See? Fishy."

His mouth twisted. "Maybe."

We walked for a while without speaking after that, crossing through the city wall into the woods and continuing along the path. Kairi, Sora, and Kaj had long disappeared in front of us. The other three had stayed in town, wanting to visit Lea, Isa, Xion, and Roxas at their apartment. As for the doppelgangers, they had parted with cryptic words about 'still having tasks to complete' and contacting us 'when the time is right'.

None of it made sense to me. Do they expect Aqua and the others to just hang around in Twilight Town until they're ready for them? Why did they need to come to our universe to enact this plan, anyway? What if they hadn't happened to have met all of us, would they have been able to do it by themselves? The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if our meeting hadn't been such a coincidence, after all. I said so to Riku.

"I don't know, they seemed genuinely surprised to see us, to me," he replied.

"Maybe they're good actors."

"But even if they were looking for us..." he continued, ignoring my interruption. "Maybe they knew they needed more Keyblade wielders, and knew they could count on us."

I stopped walking again and stared at him. "So now you're saying that they somehow knew we were Keyblade wielders before they even came to this universe? How would they possibly know that, unless someone has been watching us? And if they came here purposely looking for us, then why would they act surprised to see us?"

Riku laughed, though it didn't sound like he actually found it that funny. "I don't know, Meli! I'm not saying any of that, because I just don't know. You're right, there are some things that don't quite add up. Maybe instead of endlessly speculating about it, we should just ask them next time we see them. Maybe they can explain it to us and it will make perfect sense."

I highly doubted that, but instead of saying it out loud I just glared and kept walking past him. We were nearly to the mansion when I remembered the other thing I had wanted to ask. "Did they happen to mention the other member of their group to you? The one that's missing?"

"Missing?" He frowned. "No, no one said anything about that."

"Apparently her name is Ava, and she's mine and Kairi's doppelganger. They need her for whatever this plan is, but no one has seen her." I paused, my mind drifting back to the night before. "I think I dreamed about her."

This seemed to catch Riku's attention. "Really?"

"Yeah." I shook my head. "I guess that's...weird...dreaming about someone you've never met before, but –"

"No, no. It's...it's a thing you do. Or, have done, in the past. You dream about people in other universes who are connected to you. First it was me and Sora and Kairi, then at one point it was Kaj. Anything important happen in the dream?"

My eyebrows creased as I focused on the fleeting images that passed through my head. "She was...locked up? I don't know where, just...it was dark, and she was scared. But by the end she was leaving, saying something about getting away before 'he' came back." Glancing up, I took in the contemplative look on Riku's face. "Do you think she might be in trouble?"

He lifted his shoulders. "You said she had escaped by the end, right? So maybe she was in trouble, but she's not anymore."

"Unless whoever 'he' is finds her again."

We had reached the front gates of the mansion, and both stopped as if by prior agreement. His gaze found mine, and I looked away quickly. "Are you worried about her?"

"No," I answered immediately. Worry was not within my capabilities, after all. Maybe I was concerned, but I didn't know why I would be. "I have no reason to want to complete the group they need for their little plan. Until we know what they actually want, it's probably best if she just stays away."

I could feel him studying me without looking. "But...?" he finally prompted.

I huffed, making a loose strand of my hair flutter. "But...I don't know. I just thought you might want to know, okay? We're supposed to be heroes, right? Helping people who are in trouble?"

He nodded, and I glanced at him long enough to see that I couldn't read the expression on his face. "Yeah. We are." Reaching out, he clasped my shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. I wasn't sure why, it was almost as if he was trying to comfort me, but I didn't feel like I needed comfort. I just needed to be able to figure all of this crap out. "Let me know if you have any more dreams about her, okay? If it seems like something's wrong, we'll figure out what to do about it."

.o.0.O.0.o.

It was almost as if he was predicting the future, because that night I actually did dream about Ava again. To start with, the dream was completely different, filled with people wearing animal masks and wielding Keyblades. At first they were friendly with each other, but I could feel distrust and animosity growing between them. Then war broke out in a place that seemed vaguely familiar, vicious and bloody, and Keybladers fell left and right underneath the glow of a heart-shaped moon.

A flash of light. Suddenly the war was gone, and only the girl with the fox mask was left, stumbling lost and injured through the night. Not long after that, the dream transformed into the same one as before, only this time I knew who it was locked away in the dark. I could hear her thoughts more clearly, too.

Who am I? What happened to my friends?

Right before the door swung open, a gravely voice that I somehow knew I should recognize spoke. "Come on, X, it's time for you to get out of here. I've got bigger and better plans for you than these morons." I caught a glimpse of a figure in a black hooded cloak from behind just as the scene changed to the second building.

From there the dream progressed as before, ending with Ava running off into the city. I woke immediately after and sat straight up in the bed, focusing hard so that none of the details would slip away. Something was eating at me, something that I needed to figure out, some important fact that the dream had revealed if only I could put it together. Scrunching my face tight, I pressed my forehead against my knees.

Think, Meli, think.

Wait!

Rolling out of the bed, I jogged next door to Riku's room and threw open the door without knocking. He shot up out of what seemed to be a dead sleep, his Keyblade materializing in his hand before his eyes ever focused on his surroundings.

"There's another one," I announced. "There's somebody else involved that they haven't told us about."

"Meli." Visibly relaxing, Riku released his Keyblade and rubbed his hands up and down his face. "It's you."

"I know it's the middle of the night, but I just had another dream and I don't want to forget this, so hear me out." I walked up to the bed and plopped myself down onto it. "There were all these people in masks, right? And I know that the fox girl was Ava for sure, but I'm like, ninety-nine percent positive that the other ones were the new doppelgangers. I mean, there were four of them, and the body types matched, and I just kinda...know, you know?

"Anyway. But then, later on when she was locked up, the guy that let her out was wearing a black coat with a hood, and I had seen him at the beginning, too, with the mask people, but like, not one of them, right? And his voice I swear I recognize, but it definitely wasn't one of the doppelgangers. And he was talking about having plans for her, and I wonder if it was the same plan as the one they're wanting us to help with, but then of course she ran off and left and he was probably the 'he' that she wanted to get away from. Which would line up with them not knowing where Ava was."

I stopped and sucked in a deep breath. "Anyway, the point is, I think there's another member of the group that they haven't told us about yet. Maybe it's the one who made the portal to get them to this universe, since they haven't said that it was any of them. But whoever it is, Ava knows him, and doesn't seem to like him."

When I finally finished my spew of information, Riku just stared blankly at me for a long moment. Eventually his eyebrows furrowed, and he cleared his throat. "Wait...did you...did you say a...black coat with a hood?" I nodded, and he groaned, rubbing his face again. "Of course you did."

"What do you mean? Do you know who it is?"

"No," he answered, and I deflated a little. "But let's just say we rarely meet anyone good wearing one of those."

"Aha." I poked him in the arm. "So it sounds like the doppelgangers are working with a bad guy."

Riku grimaced. "Maybe. All of this is...pretty circumstantial. There's no real proof."

"You still don't believe me that they're up to no good." I crossed my arms, nearly pouting.

"No! I –" He was quick to dispute my words, almost frantic, but then had to pause and consider what he actually wanted to say. "It's not that. I don't not believe you, I just...think we need to proceed with caution, and make sure we actually have evidence before we make any accusations."

"So let's find some evidence."

He stared at me again, this time less blank and more resigned. "You want to go find Ava."

I nodded. "I think we should. I mean, I'm not exactly sure how..."

"Well, if somebody was going to, you'd be the one to do it. You're the one who can travel to other universes, and you also have the ability to locate people you're connected to."

My eyebrows went up. "I do? Huh. Anyway, if we want answers, we need to know who this hooded guy is, and she's the one who can tell us without us giving anything away to the others."

Riku drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Okay. Fine. We'll go find Ava." Before I could reply, he emphatically added, "Tomorrow," and fell back onto the bed. "Right now, I'm going back to sleep."

I shrugged, then flopped down myself. "Alright. Goodnight."

He turned to look at me, seeming surprised, then broke into a chuckle. "Okay then. Goodnight, Meli."

A/N: Next Saturday there will probably not be a new chapter. I'm going to be at the beach and I don't want to have to take my computer with me. If I can figure out a way to do it all on my phone before then, I will post, but otherwise I will try to remember to post when we get home!