Yay! Today I get to thank myself for inventing Wesley Swann...but he's fanfiction too. I didn't invent the Swann part, so he's only half mine. Bartholomew Schmitty on the other hand is completely mine. Enjoy.

From another's point of view

Life is good, I thought. What could possibly be better than spending a few hours on a rowboat singing pirate songs and drinking with your best mate? Of course, Schmitty didn't drink any rum because we found out once that alcohol and he didn't go well together. From where I was laying, I rose my bottle in th air to get his attention and to help myself sit up.

Drunkenly I stumbled out, "Remembeh tha' night with dem Aztecs?"

"Aye Suh, Misteh Aztec Suh," Schmitty agreed, pretending to be drunk with me. "I's certain Wesley 'ere peed in your soup."

I laughed for a while which was interrupted by a small hick-up. Then, both of us started laughing, and we couldn't stop. After about a minute, we were beginning to calm down when a little person with wings landed on my shoulder. I jumped, because it surprised me, almost falling out of the boat. Schmitty's laughter started all over.

When I could manage to get words out—as best as anyone drunk could—I turned to the fairy on my shoulder and said, "'ello li'l person. How'r ye?"

"I'm not a little person," came the small voice. The fairy was kind of cute, with an all-around tint of green and big innocent eyes. "I'm a fairy."

"Sorry li'l pe—fairy. Li'l fairy."

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes. "I've got a message for you from one Nori Kyoko. He says he urgently needs your presence on the sixth floor of Writers' Block. Signed Sincerely, himself."

I thought for a moment, as things are harder to process when you're drunk. "I don't think I know that person."

"Well, does it look like it's my fault that you've been contacted by someone you've never met. Besides, it's not like you have to go save his life," the fairy finished, with a major attitude problem, as she flew off.

I looked at Schmitty with a questioning face for a while, but because he wasn't answering me, I had to make the decision myself. "It seems a enough nice day fer savin' people, don'chya say?...Ain't got notin' better t' do." I wobbly stood up and stepped out of the boat.

A second later, Schmitty was pulling me out of the water, commenting, "It would probably be better if we rowed ashore."

"Good idea," I agreed.

Schmitty did just that, simply dropping me off at the dock and continuing on his way. I don't know if he was to shy to fight or to meet new people, or if he believed since they only asked for me, he would only be in the way. Whatever he thought, for some reason he thought drunk guy could handle it. Of course, I didn't blame him for that. I thought I could handle it too.

The first thing I realized I didn't have under control was finding a way to get to Writers' Block. From where I was, at the sea port, it would take days to get there. Then, I began to wonder how people who were arrested got there quickly. After a moment of my slow thinking, a realization came to me that Lionel's helpers who arrested people for him had some sort of instant transporter, space warper thing. I quickly changed my methods to wandering—or staggering—aimlessly around the city to find one of Lionel's people.

"Dumb lobster-spies," I mumbled under my breath, twenty minutes later. I still hadn't found any. Why was it that they were around whenever you didn't want them there, but as soon as you were looking for them, they were nowhere to be found? Frustrated, I was about to give up, when I saw a family touring the city for vacation. The man was taking a picture of his wife and son. That gave me an idea!

"I am gonna kill that Lionel!" I shouted into the air, knowing the security cameras would catch that. Then, I sat in the middle of the street, with everyone staring at me for my comment, and waited two minutes for the guard to watch the surveillance footage.

I was strangely happy to see the annoyed redhead walking toward me. I stood up, acting like I hadn't noticed him, though. Walking in a way I thought was casually, I brushed by his shoulder, pretending it was an accident. He angrily grabbed my wrist. Quickly I remembered his hands were hot as they began to burn me.

"What do you think you're doing?" He demanded.

"Walkin'," I replied. "Is der sumtin wrong wit' dat?"

"Yeah."

"What?" I questioned, trying to get up in his face.

"You're under arrest."

"Fo' what?"

He looked to the palm of his right hand and read, "For treason, threatening to kill the king of Fiction-land, disturbing the peace, and 17 accounts of piracy…Got it memorized?"

"Hey! I already served time for six of those!" I protested.

"Six? There's only four."

"No, six of the seventeen."

The redhead looked from his hand to me and back to his hand again. "Oh well, that's not what we're arresting you for. You said you were going to kill the king. Come with me."

I threw his hand from my wrist and shoved him. "You're not taking me to that pathetic prison again are ye?" I really emphasized the word pathetic, somewhat spitting it at him.

"That would be the under arrest part," he said somehow keeping his voice calm even though his green eyes were full of annoyance and a circular weapon had suddenly appeared in his hand.

"That's boring," I complained. "I've escaped from that—what—like…six times. Challenge me."

"You want to fight me then?" The redhead asked eagerly as he spun the weapon around in circles on his hand.

"On second thought," I decided gesturing largely, "I think I'll just take my leave now." I turned to run away, but the redhead grabbed my wrist again.

"Not so fast. We'll compromise."

"No prison?" I asked excitedly.

"You're still going to Writers' Block," he contradicted, "but you get to choose the challenge."

"Something better than level one." That time I spit the word better. "Like three, or five, or four! Maybe seven, or ten, or thirteen even…or six, I think I skipped six."

"Oh." He looked at me funny for a second before continuing, "Is that how they teach you to count in England?"

I muttered to myself about that comment but didn't say anything because he created his instant transport circle and shoved me through it. Instead of landing in the room like we normally did, we appeared in the hallway of the prison. I looked around for a moment before the redhead sighed.

"I don't know why you chose level six in particular, but if you can get to it before I can get to you, then you can stay there."

Wondering how he had known for sure I had chosen level six, I glanced into his eyes. I had tried to hint at it, but not to make it obvious. I hardly looked at him for more than a second before I took off running up the stairs, however. He was instantly after me, throwing balls of fire that would magically appear in his hands at my feet. Feeling like I was starting to gain on him by level three, I looked behind me just to check. Surprisingly, he wasn't there at all. I kept running anyway.

At the entrance to level four he suddenly appeared in front of me. I skid to a stop thinking, Bloody instant transport machine! He took a step towards me. I took one step back down the stairs in return. Those people creeped me out, with their gravity defying hair and magical weapons. With a smug laugh, the redhead got a tiny, crooked smirk on his face.

I drew my sword and, pointing it at him, shouted, "That's not fair! I can't do that."

He just laughed again. "Do you really think you can fight me with a sword? And like that?"

"I swear to drunk I'm not God!" I insisted. Then, I covered my mouth realizing what I'd actually said. "That came out backwards, didn't it?"

"Yeah…and the smell gives you away."

I was absolutely silent for a while, and then I randomly exclaimed, "Hey, do you think if I burp you could catch my breath on fire?"

The redhead just raised his eyebrows at me. It was clear that he thought I was distracted. I took advantage of that short moment by charging him and slashing at him once. He pulled back to reality quickly enough to deflect it, but I still caught him off guard enough to slip around him, continuing up the stairs. I sheathed my sword and ran as fast as I could. The redhead started to make another instant transport machine, but he decided against it. Curiosity got the better of him. Wanting to know what I wanted to do with level six, he just chased me up the stairs.

I got there and waited exhaustedly by the entrance. Why was I offering to save these people again? The redhead arrived not too long after me. He simply opened the door, shoved me in, locked the door again, and waited outside to see what would happen. I fell over, did a backwards somersault to keep from hurting myself, and rolled to my knees. Instantly, a girl threw her arms around my neck.

"Wesley!" She shouted excitedly. Then, she pulled away from the hug and seemed to be examining me. Running her tongue over her teeth, she stated mysteriously, "You smell like rum…but you're better than I imagined you."

I was really confused, and her hair looked funny. "Are you Nori?" I asked curiously, trying not to get distracted by the fact that her clothes were hardly covering anything in comparison to the full length dresses I was used to.

"No, silly. I'm Tiara," she corrected, turning me around to face the rest of the people in the room. "That's Nori," she said, pointing to another person with obviously unnatural hair. In fact, there was only one other person in the room with natural looking hair, and he had a major sunburn. The girl called Tiara had a small British accent, but it wasn't as strong as mine.

I nodded in greeting to him, quickly changing to shaking my head back and forth. "What am I here for?"

"Your key," Nori replied.

"What key?" I asked, pretending I didn't know what he was talking about.

"This key," Tiara explained, pulling it off from around my neck.

I defensively grabbed it back from her. "How did you know I have that?"

She laughed, "I gave it to you Wesley." Then, distracted by the two rings on the necklace with the key, she changed the subject. "You actually keep the rings there? Do you love Kemina?"

"What?" I demanded, very confused. "No, William Turner gave me that key. I've never met you before. And what do you care about Kemina?"

"No Wesley," the girl countered, "I'm your author. I gave you the key."

Was that even possible? Were they just trying to trick me into giving them my key? How did they even know about my key if she wasn't really my author? I decided to test her.

"Tell me something about me that only my author would know," I ordered.

The girl responded, "You're self conscious about how short you are. You are an amazing actor, to the point that when you spent four weeks dressed as a girl, you scared yourself because half the time you forgot you were really a boy…You have nightmares about a hat trying to kill you, and you have a secret friendship with a boy named Jeremiah that no one knows about but you." She paused to take a breath. "Need I go on, or have I embarrassed you enough?"

I hadn't realized it, but my face had flushed to the point that the color could compete with the sunburn on the other guy's face. She was right about all those things, and they were really things that only my author could possibly know. I was suddenly so confused—partly because I didn't know whether to be angry with her for saying that or to hug her for being my author. Everything was quiet for a while because I was thinking, and the people were letting me think. Then, a boy who was lying on the floor in the back of the room just burst out laughing. He had obviously been holding it in since the things Tiara had said and just couldn't hold it in anymore. He laughed for a few seconds. Then something came over him. He grabbed his sides in pain and groaned miserably.

I smiled, thinking back on a memory when I felt the exact same way. Poor kid. Suddenly, it didn't matter that my author had just embarrassed me in front of a bunch of weird looking people. I felt for whoever the boy was.

"How'd he break his ribs?" I asked curiously.

"Trying to save my life," Nori answered after a second.

"All of our lives actually," Tiara added.

"And you want out to get him help?" I questioned.

They all agreed in their different ways, with Tiara once again adding, "And we should really look for Tia Dalma since we're in here anyway."

"What? Why do you think Tia Dalma's in here?"

"Well, we don't know she's in here. We just know she's locked up somewhere. It wouldn't be wise to miss the opportunity to look here."

I glanced out the window in the wall—which I was pretty sure wasn't supposed to be there—at how bright and sunny of a day it was. "If she was locked up at one point," I noted, "I don't think she is any longer."

"No, trust me, she is," Tiara countered, "and she has been for…almost three days now. That's the only reason I'm here."

I put two and two together and was slightly upset. "You've been here for three days and you didn't come find me until you needed let out of jail! God Tiara, I thought I was important to you!"

"Wesley," the girl began, but she seemed to not know what to say. "I'm not here for pleasure, like on vacation or something. I didn't exactly have time to look you up."

"Oh, it takes what? Two minutes to send a fairy to come find me. You had no problem doing that just now. And who are these people? Are they all your characters too? How long did it take you to look them up?"

"Chill Wesley," Tiara replied with a frown on her face. "I didn't know what a fairy message was until they used it to find you. Nori is the only one who is also my character, and he showed up on my doorstep to tell me Tia Dalma needed our help! It's not my fault she didn't choose you to save her!" She took a deep breath and then finished calmly, "Believe me Wesley. If it would have been you begging me to come to Fiction-land with you, I would have spent all three days with you and your friends."

I didn't say anything. Even if I had wanted to, I wouldn't have known what to say. There was one thing I did know: whether I would believe Tiara or not, the kid with the broken ribs needed my help. After a moment, I climbed to my feet and walked back to the door. I unlocked the door and took my key with me, but I left the door open. I had expected to see the crazy redhead standing outside the door, but I don't think he expected me to walk back out it. My first punch landed on his face before he even knew I was there.

Instantly, he grabbed my wrists—which made me drop my key—and muttered, "You little…"

Somehow, I managed to throw him off balance, rolling the two of us onto the floor inside the room. After making sure I would end up on top, I ordered the four people, "Get outta here now!"

The redhead looked to the four people he had worked so hard to catch the night before as the sun burnt one scooped up broken-ribs kid in his arms. "What the—? No!" He tried to throw me off of him, but when he stood up, he quickly realized he had forgotten to let go of my wrists. I smiled at him and then tripped him, running towards the door just as the four people made it out. I shut the door behind them, hardly giving Tiara the chance to say, "Thanks," which she tried to do.

No longer having any doubt about what I wanted to do on level six, the redhead was angry. He wanted to fight me for real now, and it was obvious from the way he looked—not to mention his magical fire hands had returned. I really didn't want to fight him. Why did I always do this to myself? I asked, remembering just how often I got myself in trouble.

From my point of view

After seeing what happened to Warren the night before, I did not want to leave Wesley in there with Axel, but he was doing it on purpose…I think. I bent down, noticing something on the ground. Wesley had left his key in the hallway! I don't think he'd meant to do that. Knowing I'd probably never see him again, I didn't want to take it, yet at the same time, I knew I shouldn't leave it there.

My thoughts were interrupted by Warren stating aggravatedly, "We don't have time to argue about this Nori! I'll get Sora to Aerith, don't worry about it. We'll be fine. You and Tiara, go look for Tia. It'll be better this way, I promise."

Nori didn't argue—though he must have been before. He just grabbed my arm and started running up the stairs, making me drop the key to the floor. Warren took Sora the other way. I couldn't stop thinking about Wesley, praying that he would be okay. I swore to myself there that as soon as I got home, I would write something else about him to make sure he got out of Writers' Block safely…and if he hadn't gotten out yet, I would never give up on writing him.

"Duck!" Nori screamed, pushing me to the floor. We dodged a punch from a guard, and then Nori punched him back. He was easy to knock out, I noticed, as he fell unconsciously to the floor. Nori bent down to grab the keys from the guard's belt, and I realized I should have brought Wesley's key because all the doors were going to be locked. Now we had the guard's keys, though, so it didn't matter.

We kept running up. We only stopped for a second when Nori saw a bunch of heartless on the tenth floor, but after figuring out a plan in his head, he charged through them, dragging me along with him. He must have figured we could run faster than they could. We could, but I was getting tired from running up the stairs. Down—or flat—would be so much easier. They were starting to catch up with us again when we reached level thirteen. Nori pulled out the keys to unlock the door, and we ran in, closing the door behind us.

Finally able to take a breath, it was a while before Nori said, "We'll start here…and work our way down…If someone…like her were here…she'd be more likely to be…near the top."

I nodded my head in agreement, but didn't get a chance to say anything. Instantly, the whole room was pitch black, and we were falling.

Axel had beaten Wesley pretty bad…and he hadn't even used any fire this time. Proud of himself, and sure the battle was over, Axel finished, "Congratulations kid, you just earned yourself two free years in Writers' Block." He drew a circle in the air with his hand, opening up another portal and walking through it.

Wesley smirked, reaching for the key around his neck. When he realized it wasn't there, he jumped to his feet in shock. He didn't like the idea but had no other option other than to follow Axel through the portal. Climbing to his feet on the other side, Wesley looked around him in awe.

"What is this place?" He asked himself out loud.

"Axel, who's that?" Came the response from a different voice. Wesley turned to face it and saw a blonde boy with hair just as crazy as all the other people's.

"Don't tease me Demyx," Axel replied, "There's no one—whoa! What the—?" Axel jumped a little to the side, surprised to see Wesley. "How did you get here?"

Wesley looked around for a while longer before saying, "I like your magic instant transport machine."

"Yeah, it's somethin', isn't it?" Demyx asked, rubbing his fingertips on his chest in a bragging way, as if he had invented it.

Axel didn't take it quite as well. He was so angry that steam was pouring out his ears—literally. "You are supposed to be in Writers' Block," he growled. "Maybe next time I won't let you choose your own level."

Feeling a little cocky, Wesley noted, 'Come on, I escaped twice from level six. Do you really think I wouldn't have escaped from any other level?"

Axel was through with Wesley. Raising his arm with a ball of fire to throw at Wesley, he shouted, "How 'bout I tie you to a rock and throw you in a lava pit?"

Wesley ducked nervously, but instead of feeling a burning sensation, a few drops of water landed on his face. They had come from Demyx and were directed specifically to Axel, who stood there, completely soaked. He wasn't any less angry, though.

"Chill Axel," Demyx ordered. "It's not like he's Sora or anything."

Axel grumbled, "He let Sora out."

"He what? Oh, you're gonna be in big trouble."

We only fell for a few seconds before hitting the floor…or at least we thought it was a floor. After a second, Nori asked quietly, "Are you there Tiara?"

"Yeah," I replied.

"Do you here something?"

I listened for a second and didn't hear anything. Deciding to lighten things up a bit, I answered, "Mune no DOKI DOKI dake."

"What?" He laughed. "You can't even say Japanese names, don't try to speak the language. Where'd you learn that anyway?"

"From watching anime on the internet. I like to watch Detective Conan, and he says that at the beginning. It does mean 'just my heart beating,' doesn't it?"

"Yeah…so you don't hear anything, then?"

"No."

At that moment, what I thought was a solid floor started rising at high speeds. Apparently we were on a moving platform, and Nori had heard the mechanics warming up. There had to be a reason that they dropped us and were putting us back up where we came from. Nori seemed to think he knew what the point was because a couple seconds later he grabbed me and rolled off the platform. That time, we only fell three or four feet before hitting the floor. A second later, we heard a crash and the sound of breaking glass.

"That would have killed us," Nori said, helping me to my feet.

Realizing that level thirteen would probably be like that the whole time we were here, I reached down my shirt where the kimono was and grabbed my cell phone. It hadn't had service the entire time we were in Fiction-land, but it did have a little flashlight in the bottom of it. We would need to see. I turned the light on and shined it at Nori for a second and then around the room.

"Awesome," Nori exclaimed, "that'll be helpful."

I was shining the light behind him when a metal wall sliced down with a thump. Another one came down behind me, forming a narrow hallway that we were stuck in. Coming from the right were smaller ones that created an end to the hallway and were getting closer and closer to us. If one of them dropped on us, we would be dead. Both getting the same idea at the same time, Nori and I ran in the only direction we could…right to where Lionel was leading us.

The falling walls were catching up with Nori and I when the floor once again dropped out from underneath us. We were surprised when we didn't fall, however. Instead, something was making us float upward and into this room in the shape of an octagon. It looked like a giant kaleidoscope, with strange, shifting, purple blobs floating around on the walls. It also was some sort of mirror labyrinth because none of the walls were where they appeared to be. Nori and I tried to reach every wall to see if it was possibly a door as well, and sometimes we would run into the wall before we ever though we had reached it, whereas other times we wouldn't reach the wall until after we had passed the floating colors.

None of the walls, though, had any evidence pointing to their being doors, so we returned to the center of the room to sit. There were dull orange lines running from each corner to the center, forming another small octagon in the center of the room. That was where we sat, entirely lost, just staring at the cloud of green gas that periodically appeared inside the small octagon. We hardly even noticed that the walls had changed from purple to red until the green cloud came up blue. A second later, we woke up on level twelve.

Lionel was standing in front of us in another room that looked similar to level six—only with a hallway at the back of it. Braggingly, he stated, "I thought I warned you Nori."

Nori sat up instantly, defending, "No, we weren't looking for Queen Dalma!"

Lionel laughed. "And what am I to suppose you were doing on level thirteen?"

Nori didn't have any ideas, so, still thinking of my thirst, I blurted out, "We were looking for a drinking fountain. It'd be nice if your guards actually fed people here."

"Ha! What gave you the idea that I would do anything nice Young Lady?...and Nori's eyes look guilty."

Crap, I thought, stupid anime emotions.

Lionel brought a small rectangular object out from behind his back, asking, "Do you know what this is Nori?"

Was that a memory stick? I looked closer and was sure I was right when Lionel also pulled out a laptop to go with it. Dropping it to the floor in front of Nori, he answered his own question.

"It's your life."

That time, Nori laughed. "You created this place; you should know stories don't work here."

Kneeling down to the floor, to be closer to Nori's level, Lionel whispered, "Stories can't get through these walls, but there's not a wall between you and me, is there? And I don't need to send you to your story to kill you with it."

"How did you get that?" I demanded.

He didn't answer me, though. He just put up a wall between Nori and I. It was the same pink wall that had separated Obi-Wan Kenobi from Qui-Gon Jinn in Episode I of Star Wars just before Qui-Gon died. I couldn't get through the wall; I couldn't even hear a word Lionel was saying. All I could do was watch helplessly from the sidelines. Plugging in the memory stick, he opened Microsoft Word and went to the end of the story.

"And then Nori died, a slow…and painful…death," Lionel stated as he typed. Nori keeled over, grabbing his stomach. Satisfied that it was working, he pushed the save button and closed the computer. He finished, "Seeing as last time, being creative didn't work."

Nori rolled onto his stomach somewhat flailingly and desperately reached to the computer begging, "No…please." He was beginning to have difficulties breathing. Lionel stood up, taking the computer out of Nori's reach and throwing a watch to the floor.

"You've got ten minutes Kid. Have fun counting down." He turned to leave, but for some reason, he turned back to Nori. Tossing Wesley's key on the floor as well, he concluded, "Oh yeah, I think that's yours."

The pink wall fell down, and I rushed toward Nori. By then it was too late because Lionel was done with him. Lionel wanted me now. Grabbing my wrist, he started leading me down the hallway. I struggled and resisted, but I couldn't overcome the seven foot lobster. Eventually, I just conceded myself to crying out Nori's name with tears welling up in my eyes as Lionel dragged me away.