ATUHOR'S NOSE: So one of my favorited stories, which is also one of the inspirations for this story, just reached its ending after almost 10 years. (Most of which I wasn't there for, but never mind that little detail.) So go check out "Eclipse of the Heart", by FadedPhantom. Er, not right now, though, read this first!

Well. First things first. I counted to twenty, and Lexaeus didn't show up. So Axel was, in fact, holding him off. I had been concerned about the possibility that Lexaeus would just open his own Corridor of Darkness and slip past him, but apparently that was easier said than done.

The various Heartless in the area were still not paying attention to me. Presumably, my black cloak was hiding my heart's light successfully. But that could change any second.

We probably weren't going to find Roxas here, so I needed to call the others and tell them to withdraw, but neither my phone nor their communicators could transmit from here to there. I needed to get back to the Realm of Light.

Naminé had entered at the same place, only a few minutes ahead of me. Maybe I could catch up to her. "Naminé! Can you hear me?"

... No response. "Damn it." The problem was, I didn't actually know how to navigate the Realm of Darkness. Luke had explained how to open Corridors of Darkness, over text, but I still didn't know how exit points in here corresponded to the Realm of Light. There hadn't been any time to learn this, and so I had been relying on someone else doing the navigating for every part of this plan.

Well, I did know one exit point. I could leave the way I came, and go back into Zexion's lab. Maybe, if Lexaeus wasn't expecting this, I could get the drop on him and... do something. But without a weapon...?

XXXXXXXXXX

When I quietly slipped back in, I noticed that Axel and Lexaeus were fighting out in the hallway. Either Axel had deliberately drawn the fight away, anticipating my return, or else they had drifted there by coincidence. Or maybe they were fighting outside by mutual agreement not to trash Zexion's lab.

I quietly pulled out my phone and sent a text to Luke updating him on the situation and asking him to pass it on to the others in person when he arrived. This was the important part - there was nothing left for us to accomplish here, so we needed to withdraw safely.

Then, carefully, I tapped exactly five keys on Zexion's computer.

"Hey, Lexy!" I taunted. "I'm sitting here totally helpless, and kinda being a huge bitch! You gonna let that slide?"

"Yes," he said, continuing to fight Axel.

"... Well, that's not the response I expected."

"He's not gonna just fall for any trick you throw at him," Axel said, still holding his own handily. "He's taciturn, not a meathead! Use a trick that's actually good!"

"That was the only one I thought of...Axel, can you just lead him over here?"

Axel rolled his eyes, but with a few swift leaps he was next to me. Lexaeus... just turned to follow him, without moving from his position.

"Really? Are you just gonna be a contrarian?!"

"It seems obvious that if my enemy wants me to do something, I should avoid doing that thing."

"He's got a point," Axel said. "You're not exactly subtle."

"Oh yeah? What if I'm double-bluffing and actually telling you what I don't want you to do?"

"The possibility occured to me, but that pitiful attempt at a bluff proved it false."

"Damn it!" I stomped my foot in frustration. "Grrr... Well, if he's not leaving that spot, I guess we can just Corridor out!" A pause. He didn't seem to be stopping us. "Okay bye!" I Corridor'd out and pulled Axel with me.

"Hey, leggo, I can move on my own!"

"Pause." I held up one finger and backed away from where the Corridor was. "Wait for it."

Several seconds passed. "Uh, Tempest, wait for what?"

"Is he really letting us go, then? I was sure he'd charge after us immediately. Oh, now I'm all paranoid." I nervously fiddled with my coat sleeve. "Well, if he's really not following us, we should get back to the front door. Roxas isn't here, he's in one of those three places."

"And just what three places would those be?"

"Those are the three worlds where... I forget, do you know about Points of Shadow?"

"...I know of them."

"Well, those three worlds are where we know one exists. The question marks probably refer to the two that we know of but haven't located. If they're specifically holding Roxas next to one, they might be relying on us having to hold back to avoid setting it off. The one in the Fifth City wasn't so bad, there was no-one and nothing there, but we might not get that lucky with the others. My question is, how do they know about this? Xaldin indicated that they think the explosions were from me."

"Bluffing? Didn't tell him? Only figured it out after your fight? Who knows, kid. Don't get yourself sucked into this yomi crap, it just gives you a headache."

I shrugged. "Well, if he's not following us, Lexaeus is... probably reinforcing the fight at the front door. So that's one more reason we should- "

"We should what, now? You are currently unarmed and near-helpless. You should not be going anywhere near a battle royale."

"I can still do magic - I can still heal! The potency will be shot without a Keyblade on hand, but I learned that stuff without one in the first place, I can keep them on their feet -"

"No. We're going somewhere safe. I know how long it takes to get to Castle Oblivion; Naminé won't be giving your Keyblade back before the battle's over. Especially if they're gonna retreat soon."

I gave Axel a death glare. But considering my options... "Ugh, fine. Where are you taking me?"

"Well, I'm of the opinion that we should head to Twilight Town."

"Twilight Town, the first place the Organization is gonna check when they realize Naminé is missing? That Twilight Town?"

"Yeah, when they realize. Right now, they're a bit busy - even if a relevant alarm has gotten to their attention, they won't actually chase after her yet. They don't think she can do anything to mess with them other than being out of their grip, so recapturing her will be a low priority."

"Hmm," I hmmed. "And sticking around here -"

"In the Realm of Darkness? When one of us doesn't have a weapon? No chance in hell or double hell, Tempest. I'd push you into Naminé's prison cell first."

"Hm. ... Oh, whatever, I'm out of ideas. It was fast enough the first time, I'll text Luke again when we get out."

A brief run, and we exited into Twilight town, in the forest by the mansion. I sent a text updating Luke, and Axel looked around the area aggressively.

As I was putting my phone away, I spotted a sudden movement from by the mansion. "Huh? ... Is that a Meow Wow? What are Dream Eaters doing in the real world?"

"We could check it out. We've nothing better to do til someone gets back to you."

I shrugged. Without my Keyblade, I was pretty much stuck here until Axel said otherwise.

The mansion itself looked much the same as always. A bit more run-down, maybe? I couldn't really remember the mansion at all, aside from the one big room in front where I had farmed Nobodies a bunch to level up Sora's Final Form.

I spotted the Meow Wow again and chased after it.

"Will you slow down?" Axel shouted. "You're unarmed, don't just run off willy-nilly!"

Ignoring him, I followed the dogcat through the mansion, into the basement, through a maze of corridors, and eventually found myself in a disused computer room.

"Oh, hey, this place... so, what's here that a Dream Eater would want to lead me to -" As if in response, the Meow Wow made a Meow Wow noise and jumped into a crackling hole in space-time. Which somehow I hadn't noticed.

After some minutes, Axel caught up with me. "Jeez, kid, why can't you hold still for a minute? ... What's all this, then?"

"This is... I'm pretty sure this is where Ansem the Wise kept a virtual copy of Twilight Town to hold Roxas in, a while back."

"You know, I actually remember that. I have this weird feeling like I shouldn't be able to, but there it is. But what's that?" he added, pointing at the crackling hole in space-time.

"I... don't know. But from looking at it... it looks like the virtual Twilight Town is ... leaking? You can see into it through the hole, I know it's the same one because this computer is smashed in that world. ... If I could remember how to get into this computer, I could probably figure out more."

"Maybe. But you can't. So don't stress yourself out over it."

"But why are there Dream Eaters here? Do virtual worlds count as dreams? The virtual world had Heartless and Nobodies, which the dream worlds didn't, but I don't remember why the dream worlds didn't have those things, so maybe it doesn't apply here."

"Okay, back up. I don't actually know what all this dream stuff is about. You gonna fill me in, or is that need-to-know info?"

"Uh, hm. Good question. I don't remember why those worlds were dreaming, or if any more are, or..."

Suddenly, a chime from my communicator. "Sora here - Luke just showed up and the moment he did the three of them just warped out suddenly! Tempest, where are you?"

"I'm in Twilight Town with Axel, and I'm currently weaponless - did anyone relay that?"

"Riku here - why did Axel take you to Twilight Town? What happened to your Keyblade?"

"I lent it to Naminé - long story - and Axel is of the opinion that this means I should stay away from combat. Even though I'm still a perfectly competent healer without my Keyblade on hand..." I grumped.

"We're coming to get you. We don't know where they went, if they're after you, or -"

And with a crackle of static, Riku was cut off.

"Um. That can't be good."

"Well, not for you," said Luxord, stepping out of a Corridor of Darkness. "But I was sure I would find Naminé here - not you two."

"I thought you said recovering her was going to be a low priority."

"Oh, he wasn't wrong. I'm here on my own initiative. A little gamble, you could s-" But suddenly Luxord was cut off by a chakram to the face. Or more precisely, to the place his face would have been if he hadn't dodged just in time.

With a wave of his hand, he summoned a wall of cards, cutting me off and trapping me in the corner. Well, he did just hear me declare that I could usefully heal without a Keyblade, didn't he?

I frowned loudly at this development. Theoretically, I could slip out through a Corridor of Darkness, except of course that I still didn't know how to navigate those. If my sense of direction had been slightly better, I could at least retrace my steps back to The World That Never Was - but if I could do that, I could have done the same to move from Zexion's lab back to Vexen's lab, or the front door, instead of relying on Axel - and in any case it would have been a terrible idea.

While Axel and Luxord clashed, I kicked and elbowed at the cards, hoping to at least knock them about enough that I had line of sight again and could heal Axel. But to no avail - a single week of training with Yuffie, plus a handful of fights, simply hadn't been enough to change the fact that I wasn't all that physically strong. With whatever magic Luxord used to summon these cards, I wasn't sure I'd have been able to budge them even with a Keyblade in hand enhancing my strength.

Maybe I could burn them. I hadn't ever really focused on straight-up damage-dealing magic, but I had practiced them for completeness's sake and they weren't that different from the healing and tactical spells I favored.

I prepared to channel elemental fire, but was interrupted by Axel's flaming chakram tearing through the cards like so much tissue paper.

"Focus, Tempest!" Axel admonished. "He's keeping us apart for a reason!"

"Well, I could hardly beat you in a fair challenge!" Luxord responded. He summoned more cards and flicked them at me flechette-style.

I quickly dodged most of them, but one managed to slice through my shoulder. "Fffffffrick -" I had forgotten that a Keyblade enhances defense, too. That had hurt way more than I was expecting it to.

"Don't drop your guard!" Axel said, deflecting a die just before it hit me - and, unfortunately, causing it to bounce around wildly, making it even more of a danger.

"Why are we fighting here? This place is tiny!" From sheer frustration, I tried simply stomping on Luxord's foot. Amazingly, this worked - he didn't realize what was happening until too late, and while he was staggering from pain Axel blasted him in the face with two flaming chakrams.

This was apparently enough to convince Luxord to flee, as he quickly opened a Corridor of Darkness and exited.

"... Wait what? That's it?"

"Don't look the gift horse in the mouth, Tempest. Keeping him away from you was a real pain, even if I could have just wiped the floor with him in a straight fight."

I sighed. "Whatever. I can't figure out what's going on here and -" Suddenly, my communicator chimed. "Oh, shit, right!" I answered it. "Tempest here -"

"Are you okay? What happened?"

"I'm fine, Riku. I think the Organization has some way of jamming these things, because Luxord showed up suddenly after I got cut off. But he apparently can't fight in enclosed spaces like this, so he ran off after taking a few hits."

"Never slows down... Well, we're at Twilight Town. Where specifically are you two right now?"

"The mansion, down in the old computer lab. There's this weird crackling portal that I think leads to Ansem's old copy of Twilight Town. Oh, do any of you remember how to get in? I think with access to the system, I could figure out what that is."

"Oh yeah, I remember that," Sora said. "The password is 'sea-salt ice cream'. But Riku, didn't we copy all the data way back when?"

"Well, we copied what was there at the time. If someone else has been using the thing, there could be more content."

"Hmm. Well, the old password still works, so while you make your way here, I'm going to fiddle around and see if I can find anything relevant." I set down the communicator and started to familiarize myself with the operating system.

Hm, I was sure I'd get from here to there in only one chapter, but there's definitely at least one more chapter in between, and I don't really feel closer. Oh well, that's what happens when you improvise all the time.

... Oh, shoot, I totally set up a thing and then never launched it. I suppose that also happens when you improvise all the time.