Either there really was a curse and shutting up about my writing pace broke it (or didn't activate it, at least), or the universe and/or my brain is deliberately screwing with me.

Or, I mean. It could simply be that having a Bluetooth keyboard for my phone has been more helpful than I ever expected.

Probably the curse, though.

And yes, I've changed the description. I expected this story to turn out more jokesy than it did, and it didn't fit anymore. I intended to update the title, too, but I couldn't think of an actually better one yet.

After an in-depth explanation of Points of Shadow, which Jiminy dutifully wrote in his journal, DiZ gave us several radar-type devices to find them.

"There are seven known Points, including the one in Radiant Garden. Their precise locations were never documented, for security reasons, but their statuses were clearly updated until this world's very end, and there is no indication that anything has happened like the incident at Radiant Garden.

"I have yet to determine a good way to secure Points, so you will simply have to mark them, and ensure that no great clash between Light and Darkness takes place there. Kairi, of course, needs to be especially careful, but depending on your exact proximity to the Point and the strength of the opposing Darkness, this may also mean Sora, King Mickey, even Riku. Luke, Tempest, I am still uncertain as to the strength of your Lights, so to you two I would simply recommend caution."

As we boarded Sora's Gummi Ship, Luke spoke up. "You three should touch base with Yen Sid. Xehanort is still out there, and forgetting about him to fixate on Points of Shadow would be... well, bad."

"Us three?" I asked. "Do you have other plans?"

"Well..." Luke pointed his Keyblade upward and opened the door to the Lanes Between. "I'm gonna forget about Xehanort and fixate on the Points of Shadow for a while. Specifically, I'm going to fly around and find all six worlds they're in, and send you the coordinates."

The three of us all simultaneously raised a suspicious eyebrow, which Luke seemed to find inordinately amusing. "Are you avoiding Yen Sid, Luke?" I asked pointedly.

"... More like DiZ is," he admitted. "They used to be close allies, remember, back when he was just Ansem the Wise. And I'm DiZ's main contact with the outside world right now. He's advised me not to approach Yen Sid unless I'm absolutely sure I can keep his name out of it."

This seemed like one of those social drama scenarios that I had never understood. "I see," I lied.

"Well, we won't tell him," Sora assured Luke. "He's probably not gonna ask anyway. Like most people, he assumed that Ansem was killed in the explosion."

Luke nodded. "I'll message Tempest when I find the first world. Then as soon as there's time, you can land there and pinpoint it."

And with that, he summoned his Keyblade Glider and left. And the three of us boarded the Gummi Ship and headed off to Yen Sid's Tower.

XXXXXXXXXX

"I wonder if Xehanort found out about the incident at Radiant Garden..." Sora mused during a quiet stretch of the flight.

"Knowing Xehanort?" I responded. "Definitely. A better question is, what does he plan to do about it?"

"Whatever gives him the greatest advantage."

"Well, obviously. But what do you think that is?"

We all paused to think about that.

"Do you think he knows where the robot came from?" Kairi asked.

"Maybe. I mean, that information has to exist, and Xehanort is certainly a master of knowing things. But... it's definitely going to be someplace obscure."

"Speaking of obscure places," Sora said, "how much of the Unknown Remnant did Luke and DiZ search, anyway?"

"Not enough. They had do-not-cross tapes up over some of the paths, and I don't know whether that's because they don't know what's behind them, or they do know and it's just that bad. Or even if it's a leftover from the original inhabitants. I should have asked." Kairi frowned at me. "Right, right, obvious solution. I'll message him now."

XXXXXXXXXX

After confirming that Xehanort was still lurking, at least for now, we decided to take the rest of the day and rest. Tomorrow, Kairi would return to training, Sora would patrol the worlds for Maleficent's schemes, and I would probably have a Point of Shadow to look into.

As I was studying a book of magic in the library, Lea suddenly came by and plopped down on the other side of the table.

"So, I guess you're the newest member of our little team."

I thought about that for a moment. "Maybe? I'd say I'm still semi-independent. Doing my own thing, but my thing happens to be the same as your thing right now. I guess I'll want to come back here for proper Keyblade training, too. Literally every master still alive is connected to Yen Sid, right? ... Except Xehanort, but, uh... no."

Lea grinned amusedly at my rambling answer. "The King, Riku, Yen Sid himself... yeah, sounds about right. Yen Sid has been outta practice so long that he probably won't want to take a third apprentice. His Highness, I think, is too busy doing stuff to sit down and train ya. Riku definitely is, though when he gets back... Ah, but that's need-to-know info."

"And you do need to know the details of his mission?"

"Well, I'm the one who goes after - ahh, tricksy." He wagged a finger at me. "Need-to-know means need-to-know. I'm not here to talk about missions, I'm here to get to know my newest teammate. Or quasi-teammate, as the case may be. The name's Lea. Got it memorized?"

I nodded. "Mm-hmm. And I'm Tempest. Nice to meet you, Lea."

"Same to you, Tempest. I gotta admit, it's refreshing talking to someone who isn't trying to call me Axel all the time."

"Heh. I know firsthand how annoying that can be."

"See, we've already got something in common! So, whatcha reading?"

"Right now I'm trying to learn how to cast Magnet. It's... trickier than I realized."

"Yeah, that's why I pretty much just stick with Fire."

"That's one way of handling it... I should probably get up and head somewhere it's safe to try casting the spell, but... this chair is comfy and I'm tired. It's been a long day."

"Take your rest when you can get it, Tempest. The life of a Keyblade wielder never slows down. Can't imagine how hectic it is being a Master on top of it."

"Yeah. Ever since I got this thing, everything has just kept happening so much all the time." I leaned back and flipped through the Magnet book some more. Lea reached over to a nearby shelf and pulled off a book at random.

We spent a few minutes reading in silence for a while before Lea spoke up again. "Hey, you feel that?"

I reached out and immediately frowned. "Last time I felt something perpendicular to reality like this, the result was an explosion that took out a good city block."

"What? Okay, but this is what it feels like when someone's opening a portal from the Realm of Darkness nearby." Lea grinned. "I think Riku's back."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Give Riku some space, Sora. His journey has been long and arduous. As yours was, remember?"

At that last, Sora relented. "Yeah." And I thought I heard him mutter something about "I didn't even finish" after that.

"I'm still in decent enough shape," Riku admitted. "Just need a good night's sleep, really. I'm more worried about her."

I should mention at this point that we were currently in an infirmary. Yeah, I didn't know Yen Sid's tower had one of those either, but I guess when you're a Keyblade Master and a master of wizardry at the same time, you end up getting a lot of injured apprentices.

Riku was sitting up in his bed, not visibly troubled. Sora and Kairi (but mostly Sora) were clamoring around him - or had been, until Yen Sid told them to knock it off.

And in another bed further back, either out cold or sound asleep, was Aqua.

I'd had a sneaking suspicion since Sora had mentioned Riku's mission, but Lea's comments had confirmed it.

I suppose it was the obvious guess, to someone with out-of-universe knowledge like I had. Though Xehanort had probably figured it out as well. Figuring things out is like his superpower, or something.

What I was still confused about was the bit where Lea had implied that I could get proper training after this mission. Did he mean Riku, Master for all of three months? Or Aqua, who had been lost in the Realm of Darkness for over a decade, and had believed herself unworthy of Mastery even before then?

Well. That was a discussion to be had at a later date regardless. Right now, we have a Xehanort to defeat and a bunch of Points of Shadow to secure.

As if in response to this thought, my phone chimed with a text from Luke.

Found one. The world is called "The Fifth Stolen City". Hope that rings bells for you, cause it doesn't for me. And a set of coordinates I didn't know how to read, but figured Sora or someone could comprehend.

And yes, of course the name rang a bell. But I found it odd that we'd be heading to Fallen London, of all places. That's not even a Disney property. But then, I suppose the multiverse wasn't actually being run by Disney. On account of not actually being fiction.

You'd think I'd have grasped this earlier, and yet the realization still managed to hit me like a truck of bricks.

"Tempest?" Kairi spoke up. "You okay?"

"Just having a minor existential crisis. Happens all the time, it'll pass in a few minutes." I sounded like I was being flippant - because, well, I was being flippant - but it was also actually true.

"Umm...?" Sora ummed.

"No, really," I insisted. "Here's something actually important - Luke sent me these coordinates and I don't know how to read them." I handed Sora my phone.

"Well, I don't know how to read 'em either, I just plug the numbers into the navigator and it puts a big dot on the map. 'Fifth Stolen City', huh? How do you steal a whole city? And what happened to the first four?"

"Bats carried it underground. And I don't recall what exactly happened to them, but I think it was nasty stuff in the end. Especially the Second City."

"Yeah," an unexpected voice chimed in. "That's how Mr Eaten got his new name, isn't it?"

In a blink, three Keyblades were pointing at Axel's throat. (Riku would later insist that it was four, and I just couldn't see him from where I was standing.)

"Whoa, whoa, take it easy. I'm not here to pick a fight. Can't, actually."

"Why, and also how are you here, Axel?"

"Well, as I was about to say, Zexion told me that there's a big hole in this tower's magical defenses. One shaped just like me, in fact. That's curious enough, but on closer inspection, the hole only stays open as long as I intend to play nice.

"Which brings me to the why. Why would you - 'you' meaning the tower's master, of course - have such an opening? Expecting me to switch sides, perhaps?"

I glanced around the room and noticed that Lea was quite absent. Of course. Axel didn't know.

"You," Axel continued, with a pointed glance at me, "Tempest, have been putting inconvenient ideas in Roxas's head. That the Organization is only using him, that he needs to escape, and that I'd be willing to help."

"What, are you saying you wouldn't?"

"I said inconvenient ideas, not untrue ones. I'd gladly help him get out from under their thumb, but the kid can't keep a straight face to save his life! Did you also tell him to be careful around Saïx and Xigbar?"

"Uh, yeah...?"

"Yeah, I can tell because he's an open book around everyone else! He's been trying to rope me into his escape in front of Larxene. Larxene! I think the only reason she hasn't ratted him out is that she enjoys tormenting me with the threat to rat him out." He ran his hand through his hair nervously.

"Er..." I considered the implications of everything he was saying. "So... I have a guess, but I like to hear things stated explicitly. Why are you here right now, Axel?"

He ran his hand through his hair again. "I guess I'm here because I need your help. We gotta break from the Organization before Larxene gets bored, and we gotta make sure they don't come after us."

I immediately began formulating a plan, but then Riku spoke up. "How do we know we can trust you?"

"What else do you know about the Fifth City?" I asked.

"Uh, not much. Death doesn't work there, but only as long as you stay out of the sun. Unless you buy this immortality cider that costs a mint."

"How do you know about something like that?" Riku asked.

"They handed me a catalog when I went in through the brass door, and there it was in plain black and white. 'So shall he never die'. They aren't exactly keeping it a secret, it's just got a hefty pricetag."

Riku continued staring suspiciously at Axel, then turned to me. "Well, he's not lying," I told him. "I guess... we can help him out, but keep an eye on him just in case?"

"Yeah, sure, watch me all you like. Nothing up my sleeves today."

"Okay, so then..." Almost unconsciously I pulled out my hair tie and started retying my ponytail. "I think, the first thing you'll need to do is go back, and tell Roxas to quit talking about escape in front of everyone. Wait, no, getting him alone will be a pain, they were already suspicious before I sped things up."

"They're still after you and your brother, y'know. Lexaeus is on a mission today to investigate the Fifth City and figure out why Luke was there and when he's likely to be back. Actually, as far as they know, that's why I'm here today, too..."

"Can you get Naminé on your side? I imagine she wants out too."

"Oh, sure, she hates being stuck in the castle. Hey, wait, how do you even know about her? We had explicit orders not to mention her in your presence."

"I'm clever and did a lot of eavesdropping."

We brainstormed further plans for quite a while, but eventually came to the conclusion that we couldn't do anything just yet. So Axel would RTC and pretend he hadn't turned...

"What do I tell 'em about the mission, though?"

"The truth. Luke's probably not heading back to the Fifth City soon, but I will be, but they can't just pop out and grab me again because I'm super suspicious of that possibility all the time now."

... and get Roxas alone, by any means necessary, to tell him that he was in but also give him a serious lecture on opsec.

Then one of them would loop Naminé in on their plans. Or possibly Axel would do that first, and she would deliver the message to Roxas, but the Organization was obviously even more suspicious of her than of Axel. But we kept the possibility open just in case.

Once all three of them were looped in, they would lay low and avoid suspicion until we could come up with a proper plan. Probably something involving getting Sora and Riku to kill off the other Organization members again.

In the meantime, Riku and I would find the Point of Shadow in the Fifth City, and... well, make a point of not clashing with major forces of darkness there? This plan blatantly had some missing steps but I couldn't figure anything out myself without a lot more information on Points themselves.

And I sent Luke a text warning him that the Organization was tracking him and he needed to watch his back.

What a comprehensive plan we've come up with! It accounts for every element, and most importantly, every person. Nothing was forgotten, so there's no concerning questions to be raised about why that might be the case.

Not sure what these tears are about.

Reviews are good, faves and follows are good, and I hope y'all are looking forward to the first proper world chapter as much as I am!