A special thanks to the creators of Aladdin, Garfield, Aristocats, Treasure Planet, Puss in Boots (the shrek way), Robots, Stuart Little, Warren Peace, the Pig and Whistle, and once again Kingdom Hearts.

Eh, I just moved my story here, so I hope it gets more hits now. I really hope you all enjoy it. There isn't much Kingdom Hearts stuff at the beginning because Nori is really the main character, but if you put up with it for a while, Roxas, Axel, and Demyx will pop up a lot.

PS, I really need names for the places in this story. That's not something I'm good at, so I need a name for the whole country (right now called Fiction-land) and for the sea port city (affectionately known as Sea-city) and the city that Nori/Sora/everybody lives in (which I named Fantasy-land just for lack of a better idea). If anyone has any ideas, let me know. :)

In the hour that we waited for Sora and Nehemiah to come get us, we didn't do much. I got to watch a group of hundreds of mice and rats call together an emergency meeting just inside the gate to discuss the recent darkness. It was funny because the three mice leading the meeting were blind. How could they possibly have known it was darker? They talked about the lemmings' and the dodo birds' plans of action, and whether or not they wanted to throw themselves off a cliff in a similar manner. The answer was unanimously, "No," and that they would prefer to eat and party their hearts out while they still had the chance.

Stuart Little started driving people around in his car, half a dozen sat in the corner gorging themselves on cheese that one had stolen from across the street, and the three blind mice struck up a band. Everyone was ecstatic about the party, so ecstatic, actually, that they didn't notice the orange cat convention gathering around them. Puss in Boots was there, along with Raja from Aladdin, Garfield, and even O'Malley from the Aristocats. They were about to attack, spreading mass chaos through the mice, and Raja even had a couple mice in her mouth already, when Dr. Doppler—the dog-man from Treasure Planet—chased them all away, forcing Raja to spit out the ones in her mouth.

I couldn't help but laugh at that. It was pretty much all that had happened while we were there. Nori mindlessly occupied himself by tossing rocks into the Outlands. He had actually started out by catching handfuls of grasshoppers and trying to scare me with them, but when I caught one and stuffed it down the back of his shirt, he stopped with that. I faced back toward the Outlands and just watched Nori for a while.

After a moment, I asked, "Is it really such a big deal that it was dark here for like twelve hours? In Alaska the sun never rises all winter long."

Nori stopped throwing rocks to reply, "It's not the same kind of darkness Tiara. Like Short Stuff said, it's 'constant dusky gloom.' It's a kind of darkness that can fill your mind with depression and suicidal slash murderous thoughts. We have night here too, and that's a completely different kind of dark. It was kind of funny right after Tia Dalma rescued the city from darkness, though, the first night everyone was freaking out…But that's what happens when darkness comes in the day now because it means that Tia is in trouble, and if we lose her, we lose her plan, and if we lose her plan, we lose light forever."

"Oh," I said and just went back to thinking. Nori realized he only had one more rock around him, so instead of starting to throw them into the Outlands again, he started throwing that one up and down.

For me, it was fun to watch what was going on in the city. It was an Arabic bazaar somewhat like the one in Aladdin, which meant there was always someone dancing through it or playing one of those flutes that can make snakes move. For a while more, I just watched. People didn't seem to be too affected by the recent darkness. Maybe that was because they had changed the password, and that made them feel better. I was about to ask Nori again when I saw a strange pirate examining some fruit in the marketplace.

I tugged on Nori's shirt sleeve, telling him, "Nori, look! It's Jack Sparrow!" Standing up and waving excitedly, I shouted, "HI Captain Jack!"

Nori grabbed my arm and pulled me back to the ground asking, "How many people's crazy fan girl can you be?"

"As many as I want," I answered. "Now stop being so jealous and let me meet him."

"You don't want to meet him," Nori warned.

"Of course I want to meet him. I've always wanted to meet Captain Jack Sparrow, even before I made you."

"That's not Captain Jack Sparrow."

"It's not?" I questioned, really confused.

"Well, it is Captain Jack Sparrow, but you couldn't have wanted to meet that one longer than you've known me because he's only a year old."

"Huh?"

"You see, ever since that movie came out, too many people have loved Jack Sparrow, enough that they want to write stories about him. The original Jack Sparrow couldn't handle all that, though. So whenever the job became too much for him, they made a new one. There's like six Jack Sparrows. That one isn't very nice, and can hardly impersonate Jack even when his authors are telling him exactly what to do."

"Then, where's the real Jack Sparrow?" I inquired.

"Uh…" Nori thought for a while. "I'm pretty sure, since he's a pirate that he lives in Sea-city because it's right next to the ocean."

"We should go there! How far away from here is it?"

"Walking?...Too far."

"Have you ever met him?" I wondered.

"Me? No, I've never been to the ocean."

"Yes you have Nori. You live in Japan. I take you to the ocean all the time," I reminded, just a bit confused.

"Well, yeah, but I meant the Fiction-land ocean. When you take me to the beach, I always have to do exactly what you tell me to. It's not quite as fun that way…but I did meet one Jack Sparrow that was almost exactly like the real one. He was pretty neat. If I get the chance I could introduce you two."

"I put a Jack Sparrow in one of my stories. I wonder which one it was."

He shrugged.

A moment later, Sora pulled up to the gate on Nori's bike and stopped next to it. Riding on the back was an African-American boy who wasn't animated. I could only assume that was Nehemiah. They hopped off, and Nori and I climbed to our feet to meet them.

"Tell me who she is, and I'll let you in," Sora ordered.

"I can't say it out loud…not here," Nori answered.

I hadn't paid any attention to that at all. I was just excited to meet Sora, so I put my hand through the gate to shake his, saying, "It's so totally awesome to meet you Sora. I'm Tiara, Nori's—"

Nori jumped on my back and covered my mouth, finishing, "Cousin. She's my long lost distant cousin."

"Dude Nori," Nehemiah remarked jokingly, "your cousin's hot. Can I date her?"

I pulled Nori's hand off my mouth and argued, "I'm not your cousin Nori." It made me feel cool, though, to know his friend thought I was cute.

He slid off my back and shushed me with his finger. "You can't go telling people who you are Tiara." Then, he turned to Sora, "Just let me in…please. You understand, don't you?"

"All right, you're telling me as soon as we get home then…and where have you been?"

"With her," Nori replied shortly.

"Still classified, then? You're acting just like that guy who thinks he's CIA." Sora leaned over and whispered the password to Short Stuff.

Short Stuff questioned, "Are you sure you want me to let them in?"

"Yeah," Sora agreed.

The gate opened slowly, and this time it didn't slam shut on us. Nori and I walked through. Nehemiah and Sora hopped back onto the bike and rode off.

Nori called after them, "You know that's my bike!"

"We'll talk when we get home," Sora shouted back jokingly.

I laughed at that, and Nori gave me an evil glare. "You do realize this means we have to walk to my home, right?"

"So?" I questioned.

He shrugged. A moment later, he added, "I told you my friends would be mad at me."

Mostly silently, he led me through the city, starting with the Arabic bazaar. When we turned down an alleyway it suddenly changed into an inner city street that looked kind of like Chicago. We walked through that for a while, past a couple of homeless people. After waiting for some busses and taxis to pass, we crossed one street. As we walked down the street, things gradually faded out of Chicago and into Paris with little bakeries every other building. When we reached the Eiffel Tower, we turned right, heading toward a large Cathedral.

It was a little uncomfortable when we walked in the door, through to the back door, and then just randomly back out again. On the other side of the church were rows upon rows of castles. I stared in awe at the fairy tale-like buildings as we passed them by. Nori just walked faster, seemingly feeling more awkward here than in the church.

I quickly learned why when someone who looked like a butler pointed to us and ordered, "You two! Yeah, you…the ones not dressed properly. Get your dirty little paws off of our perfectly paved street!"

Nori took off running, dragging me behind him, and we didn't stop until we had reached what appeared to be a hick town in the Australian Outback. "What was that about?" I asked.

Nori shrugged, "We don't belong there. Wasn't that obvious?"

"But you said this was supposed to be the good side. Everyone we've met so far has been rude."

"Good and nice don't necessarily have to mean the same thing. By good, it only means they don't support Captain CrawFish. It's possible some of them are still acting weird from the darkness, but Short Stuff is always like that—and he was only following orders. Sora's mad; you'll like him when you really meet him—but I think you were expecting to like him. The rich people are overly proud of themselves; that's always the case. And, I can't explain Jack, but that really only makes one person in the whole city that is rude, right?"

"Okay," I answered a bit skeptically.

"Come on, we're almost home." He grabbed my hand and started walking down the abandoned dirt road. He turned when we came to the only paved road of the entire town, and we followed that for another half a mile before it changed into a normal, suburban street with small homes on it. We found his bike parked just outside the fourth or fifth one and turned up the driveway.

Nori flung the door open, announcing, "Welcome to our humble abode! Here's the living room. Those are our video games. That's the kitchen, but we never use it. The bathroom is down the hall." He paused, waiting for Sora and Nehemiah to enter the room. When they did, he jumped between the two, putting one arm around each of their shoulders, and introduced as if we hadn't just met, "And these are my two best friends Sora and Nehemiah. Guess which one's my twin."

"Uh…is this a trick question?" I replied.

"Just guess."

"Sora."

"Wrong! I just knew I'd be able to get someone with that someday. You can't look at looks because Sora was made like three years before me, and Nehemiah and I were created at the exact same moment from the same dying old man."

"Interesting," I said, not sure exactly how to respond. I was also mostly distracted by the somewhat horrified expressions on Sora's and Nehemiah's faces. They weren't quite ready to make up yet, I guess.

Nori backed away from them noting, "Okay, I know you guys are mad at me. That's just how I wanted her to meet you…so, now that she knows you, this is Tiara," he suddenly switched to a bragging, elated whisper, "my author!"

"What the—" Nehemiah began but never finished.

"Is that allowed?" Sora questioned.

"I don't think so," Nori answered guiltily. "That's why I didn't want to tell you in public. I'm gonna be in enough trouble as it is."

"No kidding…if you've been with her, doesn't that mean you entirely left Fiction-land?"

"Yeah, but that wasn't my fault, and that's not really why I'm gonna be in trouble. There's plenty of other creatures who have snuck out since the gate mysteriously opened."

"The gate's open?" Nehemiah wondered.

"What's it like down there? Like was it different from here?" Sora was excited for a moment, but then he remembered he was angry and demanded, "And why again were you there?"

Nori thought for a second, knowing that the answer "painful" wasn't the right way to respond. Eventually, he responded, "What I saw wasn't any different from the way life is here, except there weren't any famous people, and I was only there 'cuz Tia asked me to go."

"Why would she ask you to go down and meet your author and not let the rest of us go too?"

"Uh…maybe I'll just start at the beginning. I was sitting on the street corner waiting for you guys to meet me like we had planned when she showed up and asked if I had plans. I told her I did, but she assured me they weren't as important as what she wanted me for. You can't argue with that, so I went with her because she asked. She took me past the Outlands to the gate, and I asked what we were doing, but she just said there was something she needed my help for. The next thing I knew we were standing in front of Tiara, and Tia was like, 'Who cares, let's go get beat up instead.' So we went to Tiara's house—and that still confuses me, why we weren't there to begin with—and Captain CrawFish beat me up until I died. Then, I woke up and came back here."

"If you were dead, how did you wake up?" Nehemiah questioned.

"More importantly," added Sora, "how did he kill you just by beating you up? How are you going to get in trouble for that? And why did you bring Tiara here just because you woke up?"

"Well, I was trying to shorten things a bit. He got a hold of my story, and I don't know exactly what happened. I just know one second I was dead and the next second I wasn't."

"That was me," I peeped up, guiltily, knowing now that doing that had sent all of Fiction-land into 'constant dusky gloom.'

"See, so she saved me somehow." He paused there to make it all seem good and so that he could take a deep breath to say the next part super fast, "Which unknowingly sent Tia Dalma into captivity to die for me."

"Yeah, you're in trouble Nori," Sora commented.

"Dude, how could you do that?" Nehemiah obviously agreed with Sora. "Don't you realize—"

"Dude, I was dead when it happened! It was her," Nori defended, but then he realized he had blamed me and quickly added, "But she didn't know any better. To them, Tia Dalma's just some creepy Jamaican lady. That's why I brought Tiara here, so we could maybe save her before anyone finds out. She feels bad, she really does."

Nehemiah and Sora looked at each other unsurely for a while before the latter asked, "How can we help?"

I winced, knowing Nori was about ready to look at me expecting a plan, and then his two friends would too. I didn't have a plan. Dusty was the one who could come up with good ideas like that. I could come up with ideas too, but it took me much longer. What I was really good at was filling stories with useless details until I knew what I was going to say. Cautiously I opened my eyes to see if they were staring at me yet. They were! I needed something—a useless detail I could throw out to fill life until I knew what to say.

"Where is she?" I inquired, seemingly randomly.

All three looks changed from stares of expectation to stares of confusion.

I explained, "I mean, when this happens, where do people usually end up? Where would she be being held captive? Obviously you can't break someone out without knowing what jail they're locked in."

After a few seconds of their faces being locked in an ignorant stare, Nehemiah broke the silence with, "Good question." He turned to his two friends, "Do you think he'd just put her in the jail, or would he want to keep a closer eye on her than that?"

There was just more staring. Oh, how wonderful boys are! A moment into the mindless silence, a yawn spread across Sora's face and he faded into Roxas. Roxas had appeared simply to rest his head in his hand and show his complete boredom.

"Shut up, Roxas," Nehemiah ordered. "These things are more difficult for us than they are for you. You are a bad guy."

"Was," Roxas corrected, "was a bad guy."

But no one was paying any attention to that. Nori, Sora, and Nehemiah had all come up with the same idea at the same time. Sora took over Roxas' place, and the three looked at each other in amazement, saying simultaneously, "To beat the enemy, you have to be the enemy."

I wasn't sure I understood what they were getting at, and Roxas didn't get it either. He shoved Sora back out of the way—figuratively speaking—to ask, "I know that means you want me to do something. What is it?" I knew Sora and Roxas could do that, but it was still really weird to watch it.

Nehemiah answered, "We'll get you and Warren together for a conference, see if you can come up with where you would put her if you had kidnapped her."

Roxas thought for a second and then responded blandly, "In a hole."

"We're not joking, Roxas," Nori said. "Think hard about it."

While Roxas thought, I inquired, "Who's Warren?"

"Another friend," Nori replied. "He should be here any minute."

I was about to ask how he would know that since he had been gone for two days. I suppose they could have had plans way in advance, but looking at the three—four—boys, it didn't seem likely. The words hadn't even made it to my lips when the sound of a dirt bike pulled up next to the house.

"See that's him," Nori continued in an almost bragging way.

But it wasn't him. About a second later, a girl burst through the door and exclaimed, "Oh my God…not good!"

"What's wrong Kairi?" Sora asked. Having immediately reappeared upon seeing her, he now stood up and started toward her.

"Come quick! Warren's—Who's she?"

I could tell Kairi was suddenly distracted by me, but Sora gently grabbed her shoulders commanding, "Concentrate. What's wrong with Warren?"

Kairi turned back to Sora. "He's gonna get himself in trouble again if you guys don't stop him fast."

"Where is he this time?" Nori wondered.

"The Pig and Whistle…again."

Even I recognized that name as a bar from a L. A. Meyer book Bloody Jack. This was not heading the right way. It was only a second before the five of us were outside in the backyard. Nehemiah opened the fence gate, and we rode off on three dirt bikes—Nori and I on one, Nehemiah and Sora on the second, and Kairi on Warren's. It kind of surprised me that Kairi wasn't with Sora, but I didn't push the issue then because they all clearly had something else on their minds.

It only took a few seconds to get to the Pig and Whistle from Nori's house, but it was understandable why they drove instead of running. By the time we got there, a tall, slender man with dark, long hair had already destroyed several things in the bar with balls of fire he could produce in his hands. He was about to throw another at a man who seemed innocent enough but was most likely the source of the conflict.

The five of us had stopped in the doorway for some reason, but recognizing the urgency, Sora rushed out to stand in between Warren and the man—or was it the man and Warren? I couldn't just assume the long haired one was their friend, even though he was the younger and more aggressive one. I worried about Sora, standing defenselessly in front of one of those fireballs, but just before the ball would have hit him, a giant key appeared in his hand. He blocked the fireball with the key and sent it back into the long haired man.

The long haired man stumbled backwards, but quickly regained his footing, ordering, "Out of my way."

Sora didn't move. Instead he centered himself better and prepared to deflect another one. "You're making a mistake."

"I know what I'm doing."

"You're still confused from yesterday."

"Out of my way," the man repeated again, moving toward Sora.

Realizing his friend needed some help, Nori charged the man from behind and jumped on his back, wrapping his arms around the man's neck. That was apparently Nori's specialty. Reflexively, the man grabbed Nori's wrists to keep them from choking him as he wavered to compensate for the extra weight. He then allowed his hands to grow very hot to burn Nori's wrists and make him let go.

"Warren," Nori called when he noticed the pain, "chill dude; it's me Nori. I'm your friend." So Warren was the one with long hair; I was so right. Nori started kicking as the pain grew. Desperately, he demanded, "Warren let go!"

"You let go," Warren replied angrily, purposefully backing into a wall.

"I can't dude," Nori answered after a second, "you're holding me there."

Warren looked thoughtfully to his hands and then carelessly tossed Nori off his back, heading back to the man he'd been fighting in the first place. From the floor, Nori reached out a leg and tripped Warren, who ungracefully fell flat on his face. Before he could try to get up again, Sora and Kairi were there holding him down. Nori climbed up to his knees shaking out his still burning wrists. Nehemiah came running toward the four with a giant bucket of ice water and dumped it on Warren—apparently it helped him "cool off."

Warren tried to get up at the shocking cold, but all of his friends held him down, Sora asking, "I thought you were keeping an eye on him Kairi."

"I was, but there are some things even I can't keep him from doing," she responded. "Come on, let's get him home."

Sora and Nehemiah lifted him back to his feet, each sturdily grabbing one arm to restrain him. He struggled and fought to get out, eventually just shouting, "I'm gonna get you!" No one was quite sure if it was to his friends or the man he had been fighting, though.

Kairi made sure she apologized to the bartender—again—for their friend's temper before following them out the door. Nori came out last, still holding his wrists. I had stayed at the door the whole time, absolutely useless, and now I had questions.

"What's the matter with him?" I asked Nori.

"He used to be on the dark side…as in the captain's side, so when he's reminded of those days, it's harder for him to pull back out of the murderous mode than other people," Nori explained. "He tries, though," Nori finished, with the same tone as a child who has been forced to say they forgive someone.

"Are you okay?" I wondered, referring to his wrists that he couldn't manage to stop fiddling with.

"Yeah."

We all hopped back onto the dirt bikes, this time Sora with Warren, Kairi with Nori, and Nehemiah with me. As quickly as we could, we got Warren back to the house so they could calm him down. Everyone made it home all right. Sora and Nehemiah got Warren to sit down on the couch by bribing him with their most violent video game. After sitting him down, Nehemiah took on the job of convincing him to put his gloves on so he wouldn't melt the controller. At the same time, Sora approached me.

"I think you and Kairi should go back to her house now," Sora began. "It's not an easy thing to fix Warren, and it works better when it's just us boys. You won't mind staying with her will you?"

"Nope," I replied, shaking my head. I was starting to need a break from boys anyways.

"We'll meet back here tomorrow to see if we can find Tia." He paused for a second. "No, can't think of anything else I have to say. Kairi!" He called to her to let her know it was time to go. No one responded, though, so he called again, more urgently, "Kairi!"

She still didn't reply because she wasn't there anymore. Naminé, her blonde counterpart, had replaced her and was busy taking care of Nori's wounds. When Sora noticed this, he was instantly replaced by Roxas. Roxas stood there for a moment, letting what appeared to be anger build up within him. I wasn't exactly sure it was anger because I always thought Nobodies—what Roxas and Naminé were—had no feelings, but he looked angry. A second later he tackled Nori, getting ready to punch him.

"You stay away from my girl—"

"Roxas," Nehemiah interrupted, "get on the couch with Warren."

Roxas obeyed, though not very willingly. Nori climbed to his feet, giving me the strangest look I've ever seen.

"Bye everyone," I announced, waving. I knew it was time for me to take my leave.

"Where are you going?" Kairi asked, reappearing from Naminé.

"We're going to your house," I answered.

"Who are you?" She asked, obviously confused.

"She's my author," Nori replied, once again braggingly. Kairi seemed to accept that because she turned to leave. I followed, taking one last look as I walked out the door.

Roxas jumped off the couch shouting at Nori, "My girl!"

Nehemiah pushed him back down. They certainly had their work cut out for them.