Thank you Kateracks for being the first to review! Thanks also, especailly to Disney (Tia Dalma/Aladdin/a few others), George Lucas (star wars), 20th Century Fox (short stuff), and Square Enix (so far just Sora, but some other Kingdom Hearts people later). And, I'm sorry if I forgot any.

Read on!

Dusty and Becca were both in my room playing Star Wars: Episode I Racer on my computer when Nori woke up. He only had to look at the ceiling to realize he didn't know where he was. He knew he was alive, which relieved him, but then he heard a strange voice call, "It's working! It's working!" Worried as to what would be working, he looked in the direction of the voice. Sitting in front of the computer were the two girls. One he recognized; one he didn't.

"Where am I?" He asked curiously.

"Tiara's room," Becca answered.

"Where's Tiara?" He sounded slightly worried.

"She went downstairs to get drinks," Dusty replied.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Tiara's sister, and this is her friend Becca."

He nodded and was quiet for a second. Then, he heard the same voice screaming. It wasn't one of the two girls, but he knew the voice from somewhere.

"Is that Anakin?" He wondered.

"Yeah," Becca replied, "how'd you know?"

"Why is he screaming?"

Not even thinking it might be a bad idea, Becca responded, "He just died."

"He's dead!" Nori exclaimed, jumping out of bed and rushing to look at the screen with the two girls. After a second, he said, "He's not dead you wackos. Look at the screen; he's still flying."

"Well, it's not really dying," Becca explained, but since she was playing, Dusty finished for her, "Sometimes, when you crash, the podracer blows up, and it's like you died, only you come back after three seconds."

Nori nodded and just watched until Becca crashed again. "Why do you crash?"

Becca and Dusty looked at each other in shock. He was like a three year old with all the "Why?" questions. Did they really have to explain that to him? How would they explain that?

"Your turn," Dusty said so she wouldn't have to answer.

"What?" Becca questioned. "I'm racing."

"Yeah, but I answered the last one, and you're the one that crashed."

"Yeah, but what do you think he'll do if I crash again and kill Anakin because I'm not paying attention?"

"Look out!" Nori warned, ducking behind the chair. He stood back up after the podracer blew up again. "How hard is it to remember to turn when there's a wall in front of you?"

Becca stopped the race. "Do you think you can do better than me?"

"Yeah," Nori shrugged, "I can fly those things."

Becca stood up so he could sit in the chair. He did, but then he just stared at the keyboard for a while. He tried to make it seem like he knew which one of the buttons to push, but there were just too many. Then, he tried to remember what the various parts were called, gesturing with is hands like if he were flying a real one.

Demonstrating each action with his hands, he asked, "Where are the thrusters?" Both hands went forward. "And the steering," one went forward and one back, "and the brakes?"

"I thought you said you knew how to fly these already," Dusty mentioned.

"Well, I do, but I've never done it on the computer before."

"Do you…use GameBoy?"

"What's GameBoy? Is that sort of like PlayBoy? I didn't think they had podracers in PlayBoy."

"Noooooo," both Becca and Dusty countered, sorry to have brought up that subject. Becca hid her face in Dusty's shoulder.

Dusty continued, "No. GameBoy is…like a computer."

"Oh,." He felt embarrassed too. "no, I fly those."

"Like real ones?"

"Uh, yeah," he nodded.

"Really?" Becca asked, coming out of Dusty's shoulder in disbelief.

"Yeah, and I don't crash into walls." They just stared at him in shock. After a second, he inquired, "So…what buttons do I push?"

Dusty quickly explained, "You push this to start the race, this to go, these to go left and right, this to go faster, and that for better control when you're turning," pointing to each button in turn. "Got it?"

Nori nodded. "Got it." He took a deep breath and started the race. It took him a while to get used to it all, but once he'd gotten the hang of it, he really was pretty good. When I got back to the room, I was so surprised to see Nori out of bed that I almost dropped the drinks.

"Nori, you're awake," I stated.

"Hi Tiara," he replied without even looking at me.

I came over to the computer, scratching my head, and watched him for a while. "Has he ever played this before?"

"Nope," Becca responded, "he flies real ones."

"Nori, when'd you learn to do that?" I asked, knowing I hadn't put anything of the sort in his story.

"Tiara, on average how much time do you spend writing about me each day?"

"An hour maybe," I answered, not sure why he was asking that.

"What do you think I do with the rest of my time? Sit around and grow moss?" That got a chuckle from all of us. "Anakin takes us to the track every weekend."

"How do you know Anakin?"

"Just a sec," he said, giving himself a chance to finish the race before he had to explain. He got first, we all congratulated him, and then he explained, "When you authors aren't writing us, we're all in the same place. The characters from every story live in the same land called (some really great name for fiction-land). We make friends and hang out and do stuff like normal people while we wait to return to (some really great name for story-land) where you write us at."

"Are you serious? You can really fly podracers there?" Dusty asked.

"Yeah."

"And there's people from every story. We could meet anyone we wanted," Becca added.

"Yeah."

"Can't we come with you?" All three of us begged, falling to our knees.

He raised his eyebrows. "I don't think so."

"Oh." That was depressing.

"'Cuz Lionel, the lobster guy, he's the king, and I really don't know how he would react to having three outsiders there," Nori explained, realizing we were all disappointed.

"Couldn't we go one at a time?" I wondered after a moment. I thought it was a great idea.

"Uh…" it was hard to say no because he really didn't see any harm in it—other than the fact that lobster guy might try to kill us for doing it. "Still no, probably. It might work if I ask first."

"Ask who? The lobster guy?" I questioned, thinking that would be a really bad idea.

"No," he replied, acting like that was an obvious answer, "Tia Dalma, she's the one that…"

"Becca!" My mom called up the stairs. "Your mom's on the phone and she wants you to come home immediately. She says you stole her car, and you still have the dishes to finish. If you aren't home in fifteen minutes, you'll be grounded."

"All right," Becca sighed. "I've gotta go. It was nice meeting you Nori." She reached her hand out to shake his, but he hugged her instead.

"Don't worry," he encouraged, "I'll see you again. I know where you live." Becca laughed at that and then grabbed Dusty and I to walk her to the door. Nori grabbed my other arm and whispered, "Stay here."

"Don't worry Nori," I responded, "I'll be back in a second. I'm just going to say good-bye to my friend."

"I need to talk to you."

"We can talk when I come back."

"No, like without them."

"Then, Dusty won't come back."

"Please Tiara," he begged, "I need to know what happened to Tia."

I stopped trying to leave, a bit confused. "You're worried about what happened to her after everything she did to you?"

"She didn't do it. The lobster did," Nori insisted.

"Nori, she brought you here, knowing he was going to kill you, and then she didn't even try to stop it. Would you have protected her after that?"

"That's what I was doing."

"But why? You're just a person; she's just a person. Lionel wasn't even looking for you."

"That's why: because he wasn't looking for me. This would all make so much more sense to you if you would have heard him call her the queen."

"How does that make it make more sense? He's king, and she's queen. Doesn't that mean he wouldn't want to hurt her anyways?"

"No…not like that. How can I explain this?" He paused to think for a while. "Okay, you know how every story has good and bad, and that's what makes a story interesting?"

"Yeah," I agreed.

"Okay, good. Fiction-land is just the same. There is the good side, and there is the bad side. And there isn't much in between. In fact, there's a big hole between the good side and the bad side. The palace is on the bad side, and when there's a good king, all of Fiction-land is consumed by good. But when there's a bad king, it is all bad and dark and people like the Heartless, the Sith, and the Hoppers roam the streets. Lionel is a bad king. Do you understand so far?"

"Yeah, but where does Tia Dalma come in?"

"I was just getting to that. When she was invented, we all quickly realized that she had a special gift, which allowed her to bring light to Fiction-land even though Lionel is a bad king. So it is light around her and dark around him. Quickly, Fiction-land became divided, the good people flocking to Tia and the bad people to Lionel. He was still the king, but the majority of people started following Tia, calling her the queen because she offered to help. She's come up with some plan to destroy him, which none of the rest of us could come up with on our own, and we trust that it will work because we trust her."

"You trust Tia Dalma? That's a strange concept. She just creeps me out."

"Yeah, she's a little weird," he agreed. "But I'm open to her plan, and I wouldn't do anything to get in the way of it. And I really don't think being the captive of Lionel is part of it."

After a second, I asked, "Why did she choose you to die for her?"

"I dunno. Maybe she knew you were coming."

"And you still trust that she has your best interest in mind after you know she would easily give one of you up like that?"

"Uh…yeah. I'm sure she had a good reason."

"Like what?"

Nori was quiet for a while, obviously not able to come up with a good reason. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he suggested, "Maybe because she knew he was coming to your house and all your other main characters were busy."

"Nori, that's not a good reason."

His shoulders slumped. "Well, I dunno. That's why she's the queen and not me…I know she's good," he insisted, "because if she wasn't, she wouldn't make everything light again. And I don't want people to blame me for losing her."

I sat down on my bed trying to think through what he was saying as he continued, "And you always have these great ideas. I know I couldn't ever figure out any of the cases you send me on without you telling me the answer. I can't save her by myself Tiara. You need to help me."

Great, I thought, he thinks I'm a talented plan designer. I don't even know what a plan designer is called. Trying to excuse my way out of it, I mentioned, "But I thought you said you couldn't bring us 'outsiders' to fiction-land."

"I didn't want to tell them that without Tia, the place isn't any fun at all. It's dark and gloomy and dangerous. And when it's fun again, once we've saved Tia, I can ask her if you guys can come, and she'll protect you…I think."

"And you don't have anyone else that will help you?"

"Well, I might…if they're not all mad at me, but we'll still need your help."

I couldn't come up with anymore excuses that didn't sound obvious, and I didn't want to hurt his feelings by making him think I didn't want to come. I did want to come. Helping him save the world would be awesome…but I didn't want to disappoint him by not being able to live up to his expectations either. I closed my eyes, and a quote from my website popped up in my mind. I am the idiot who longs for adventure, and then when I finally get it, I'm too stupid and confused to do anything about it. This was my one real chance at adventure. How could I be so stupid and just watch it pass by?

Forcing myself to overcome my anxieties, I took a deep breath and said, "Okay. I don't know how much help I'll be, but I'll do it."

The big smile was coming back, and Nori jumped into my arms, tackling me on the bed. "This is so great! We're gonna get to spend soooo much time together."

Oh dear, I thought. What had I gotten myself into this time?

When Dusty came back upstairs, no one was in my room. There was only a note left on my computer monitor that read: Went to save the world. Sorry we couldn't take you. Be back soon, but Nori says don't wait up. TTYL, Tiara.

"Ahhh!" Dusty screamed through the house, not in fear but in frustration. "That little…ugh! Grr!"

"What's the problem?" Dad called up the stairs. It would normally have been Mom asking that, but she was taking Becca home.

Dusty came out of my room so they could see each other and complained, "Tiara! She ran off to fiction-land with Nori and didn't take me!"

On the other end, Nori and I stepped out of what looked like another normal computer screen, only it wasn't attached to anything. "Welcome to Fiction-land," Nori stated, spinning around to gesture at everything. He added quietly, "Though I expected it to be dark because Tia's in captivity."

"Maybe things aren't so bad after all," I said.

"Huh…maybe…but anyways, these are the Outlands, the border between good and bad. See this giant crack?" He pointed a few feet in front of us and then politely helped me to step over it. "The forest back there is bad. Everything else is good."

I glanced back at the forest that encompassed everything behind the computer screen and asked, "If all the forest is bad, where do the forest animals live, like Bambi?"

"Bambi?" He repeated, almost hysterically. "They live in Sherwood Forest. It's separated from Bad-forest-name by all of New York City."

"Are we going to New York?" I wondered, hoping we wouldn't spend the whole time in the Outlands, which looked a bit like Eastern Oregon.

"No, New York is too big, and it's full of pollution and the rude 'good people.' Plus, all the tragedies happen there. No, we're going to Fantasy-land. It's much better there."

"Okay," I agreed a little unsurely and followed him.

After a while we past a staircase and Nori began explaining again. "That is the staircase to heaven. There are…seven levels."

"Let me guess, that's where fiction people go when they die," I assumed. I looked up at it and admired the beautiful castle that was always depicted as being at the top of the staircase to heaven.

"No, 'fiction people' dissolve when they die and are used to create more 'fiction people.' Heaven is where anything that flies lives. Like the first level is for evil fairies, and then birds, and then I think angels are next, followed by good fairies. I'm not exactly sure, but I think there's a handful of dogs on one level, and then all the gods, and something else. I don't remember."

"Dogs?" I asked, at first not remembering the series of movies All Dogs Go to Heaven which would have put them there.

"Yeah, I think, but I've never actually been there. Regular people can't go up there because a bunch of the grumpy fairies guard all the entrances."

"Oh." I thought for a second. "So have you ever seen a fairy, like, besides the grumpy ones at the gates?"

"Yeah, they come down all the time. We just can't go up there."

Just as he said that, we reached the top of a hill, and at the bottom we could see Fantasy-land in almost its entirety. "Wow!" I exclaimed in awe. It was huge. I guess I should have expected it because of just how many characters have ever been invented, but for some reason I was surprised. It seemed even bigger than New York.

"Come on," Nori suggested, randomly deciding to run down the hill. I followed, but as we reached the gate, I pulled ahead by a couple feet.

Touching the gate a second before he got there, I announced, "I win."

The short guy from Robots who opened Bigweld's gate slapped my hand ordering, "Unhand the wondrous gate of Queen Dalma's marvelous Fantasy-land! You might leave a smudge."

I moved my hand, and he started vigorously rubbing where my hand had been with a small cloth. Nori started laughing at me. He was still breathing hard and resting his hands on his knees from the run, so it sounded kind of funny. After a couple of deep breaths to stop laughing and to recover from the run, he stood up and addressed the small robot.

"So, ye gonna let us in or not Short Stuff?" He asked.

The small robot unrolled a scroll and began checking a list of names, saying, "Let me see…hmm…uh-huh…Nope, you're not on the list." He showed the list to Nori.

Nori took the blank scroll and mentioned, "There's nobody on this list."

"That's right! Fantasy-land is officially closed. No one may enter or exit the wondrous gate of Queen Dalma's marvelous city."

"That's not true Short Stuff. You let me out yesterday."

"Is that so?" He pulled out another blank scroll. "Yep, I suppose it is. Things have changed since then, young man. Go home."

"My home is inside there," Nori added. Short Stuff—as he was apparently called—just stared at Nori. There was what seemed to be a fifteen second long staring contest, which was ended when Nori said, "I know the password."

"Do you?" Short Stuff asked, "What is the password?"

Nori leaned through the gate and whispered something to Short Stuff. Short Stuff leaned back, acting like he might open the gate. As soon as we could have almost fit through, the gate slammed shut again—to be expected considering he did that several times to the main character in the movie he was from.

He laughed evilly and then stated, "That's not the password."

"You've got to be kidding." Nori was shocked.

"No, I'm absolutely serious. That's not the password."

"That password has been the same for all three years I've lived in Fantasy-land! I leave for one day and you changed it!"

"It was time for a new one."

"What do you mean it was time for a new one?"

Short Stuff opened another scroll, this time one that actually had writing, and read, "The code, as set out by Queen Dalma, in Article XXXVII," which he pronounced as "X-X-X-V-I-I," instead of "37," "dot V dot XI, line one…two…three…four…five…six, clearly states, 'a return of darkness without the immediate presence of Captain CrawFish is to be met with the reproduction of all important documents, and the changing of the gate password.'"

Nori thought for a second. "Darkness did return?"

"Yep, didn't you wonder why you were wandering around in constant dusky gloom?"

"No…I wasn't here."

"You mean it wasn't dark in other areas of Fiction-land?"

"No, I wasn't in Fiction-land. But don't tell anyone…Why isn't it dark anymore?"

"You know, I don't know. Approximately one hour, three minutes, twenty-eight seconds, and fourteen milliseconds ago everything randomly became light again."

I had been laughing at the small robot the whole time, but when I heard that, I pulled Nori to me and whispered, "That's like exactly how long we've been here. And who's Captain CrawFish?"

"Captain CrawFish is another name for…you know who…Him," Nori replied just as quietly. "If he ever found out that's what we call him, he'd be pissed. I was thinking that too, though, that it got light as soon as we got back. Strange, eh?"

"What are you two whispering about out there?" Short Stuff questioned.

"Come on, Short Stuff, just let us in. You know I live in there."

"Yep. I also know about half a dozen creatures that could perfectly impersonate you. If you don't know the new password, you don't get in."

Nori sighed and started banging his head on the wall next to the gate. "Right now would be a good time for one of your great ideas Tiara," he hinted. I just stared at him blankly, thinking, I don't have ideas. After a couple seconds, a miracle saved me when something in Nori's pocket started beeping. He pulled out a small video phone and pushed a button to answer it.

I heard a voice call from the other end, "Takeshi! Y'know we've been worried sick about you. Where have you been?"

"There's actually people here who call you Takeshi?" I asked, a bit surprised that he had told anyone that name.

"Nice to see you too Sora. Hang on a second," Nori replied sarcastically. Then, he covered the speaker and turned to me, "Yeah, Sora calls me Takeshi because he's got a girl's name, so we make fun of each other for it."

"Wait, who's Sora?" I came up next to him, to look at the video and immediately recognized the face. "Are you serious? It's Sora from Kingdom Hearts! HI Sora!" I shouted to the phone, waving dramatically.

"Who's she?" Sora inquired.

"Some crazy fan girl," Nori answered. I glared at him, offended that he would call me that. He smirked and added, "I'll show her to you if you come get me inside the city."

"What are you doing outside the city?"

"Sora, I don't know what's gotten into you. We leave the city all the time."

"Yeah, but never before when darkness returned. We've been trying to get a hold of you for two days, and your phone wouldn't pick up, even before darkness returned. What on Earth were you doing?" He gestured a lot.

"Uh…I was preoccupied," was the best answer Nori could come up with. "Come on Sora. It's not something I can shout out to the public. Come let me inside the city and I'll tell you."

Sora thought for a while, finally sighing, "This doesn't change that I'm mad at you for disappearing like that. Nehemiah and I will come and get you."

"Thank you Sora."

"Whatever, see ya."

"Bye Sora!" I called into the phone.

"Bye crazy fan girl," he replied, hanging up.

Nori gave me a jealous look, so I asked, "What?"

He responded, "I thought you were my crazy fan girl. Since when do you like Sora?"