This time I would like to thank whatever random person created the Mexican man, and also my parents for creating my sister. Don't ask why, just read it and you'll understand.

"You're gonna be in big trouble," Demyx said to Axel when he found out why Axel was mad at Wesley.

"You think?" Axel responded sarcastically.

"Well, what are we gonna do with him? Cuz obviously we can't just leave him here."

"Why don't we just pretend like this day never happened?" Wesley suggested.

"Let me kill him," Axel recommended, "just let me kill him."

"Why don't you just torture him into telling you where Sora is," another person said slowly to make sure the somewhat immature villains could understand. He had just walked by and happened to hear the conversation. After that he changed to a more angry tone, "So you can go get him and bring him back here before Xemnas kills us all."

Wesley's eyes grew big. "No way guys…I'll tell you. Sora went to see this crazy chick named Aerith or something…at least I think that's Sora, 'cuz Tiara and Nori were the only ones who stayed at the prison, and I could only assume Sora isn't Tiara or Nori."

Axel and Demyx looked to each other and then back to Xaldin, surprised that Wesley had told them already. "Well that was easy," Axel stated.

Just out of curiosity, Demyx asked, "What'd you do that for?"

Wesley answered honestly, "'Cuz redhead there's got magical fire-hands, and you can make buckets of water appear out of nowhere. I can't even begin to imagine what he can do," Wesley pointed to Xaldin. "And believe me, I've been through enough torture to last a bloody long time, but you guys scare me to death."

Xaldin thought for quite a while before stating, "We could probably get you to do some other stuff for us then…What were you in Writers' Block for in the first place?"

Wesley just smiled embarrassedly.

Axel looked to his hand where he'd written the charges. The words were a little smeared now from wrestling and the water still dripping down his back, so it sounded a little strange as he read, "For trea…treason, threat-ening to k-kill the king of Fiction-land, disturbing the peas, peace, and 17, no 11 accounts of piracy."

"Seventeen," Wesley corrected. "I didn't really serve time for six of them already."

"I see," Xaldin noted, tapping his fingers together in thought. "What would you say if I told you we could make those go away?"

Wesley had to think for a very long time before asking, "Do you promise you'll let me go free?"

"Absolutely free…after you've done a few things for us, that is."

"What things?" He remembered how Schmitty had gotten suckered into something like this once…it was piracy.

"Or we could use force…"

"Fine," Wesley agreed reluctantly. "What do I have to do?"

"First, sign this contract, so everyone knows you've given us your word of approval." Xaldin explained, pulling a random piece of paper and a pen from his black cloak. Wesley complied. "Then, you step back through the portal and wait for further instruction." Another black circle appeared to the side of Xaldin and Wesley slowly walked through.

After the portal and Wesley had disappeared, Demyx asked curiously, "Where'd you send him to?"

"Wherever he just came from," Xaldin replied. Upon seeing the shocked looks from Axel and Demyx, he continued, "We should have no problem finding him again when we actually need him."

"Yeah, but he's back on level six of Writers' Block."

Xaldin looked surprised for a second, but then he chuckled slightly. "Well, I guess we get the better end of that deal," he commented, ripping the blank piece of paper with Wesley's name on it in two.

When Wesley realized where he was, he once again exclaimed, "Dumb lobster-spies!" He kicked at a loose rock on the floor, but because he was frustrated, he missed it and fell on his butt. "Oh yes, I am so Absolutely Free!" Then, he started muttering to himself, "What kind of pirate are you anyways Wesley? Scared of giant hats and magical buckets of water. Pathetic. And everyone is like: 'Ooh, he can get out.' Well, he bloody can't get out now! His magical key is gone."

After a moment of ranting, he turned to the hole in the wall. Slowly, he got up and walked over to explore it. He was desperate, and daft, enough to try it. Looking down, then up, he realized it would definitely be easier to climb to the roof than to the ground, and he climbed out towards the roof.

It wasn't too hard to get to the roof—for Wesley at least. From there, he looked around for a way to get back to that hallway he had been in before with Axel. He eventually found a square panel—kind of like a hatch on a ship's deck—and jumped through it. Drawing his sword the second his feet touched the ground, Wesley looked around to see if anyone would attack him. All he found was Nori lying there, shivering. Immediately, he sheathed his sword and ran to Nori's side.

Rolling Nori onto his back, Wesley asked, "Are you okay?" Nori half-mindedly handed Wesley the watch which had a countdown timer at the bottom reading: 8:30. It ticked down to 8:28 before Wesley inquired, "Are you dying?"

"Save me," Nori whispered, also handing Wesley the memory stick that he had somehow grabbed from the laptop before Lionel took it away.

Wesley looked at the memory stick for a moment before lifting Nori to his feet and questioning, "How do we get outta here?" Nori just shrugged, so Wesley headed down the hallway. A second later, he wondered, "Where's Tiara?"

Nori nodded his head in the direction they were walking—actually Wesley was walking, Nori was just barely moving his feet as he was dragged along. "CrawFish got her," Nori stumbled out.

"Who?" Wesley asked, apparently not familiar with the nickname.

Nori tried to answer, but all that came out was some jumbled mumbles. Wesley shrugged and kept walking. They quickly came to a dead end, however, with three doors labeled 12.1, 12.2, and 12.3.

With a confused look on his face, Wesley said, "Twelve? I thought we were on thirteen."

With a little cough, Nori shook his head no.

"So, I guess we just pick a door now." Nori nodded and handed Wesley his key back. Wesley gave him a look that asked, "How'd you get that?" but didn't say anything.

They went to door 12.1 first, logically, and found nothing. It was just an empty room that looked exactly like the room on level six. Hurriedly, they moved on to the next one, 12.2. Wesley set Nori on his knees on the floor, leaning against Wesley's leg so he could unlock the door. That door revealed the same type of room, this time with a young girl doing yoga in the middle of it.

Nori forgot to breathe for a second. He wasn't sure if he was delusional because of dying or if this was real, so he asked anyway, "Chiyo?"

The girl opened her eyes, revealing their large size and hazel color. Excitedly, she exclaimed, "Nori!" and ran towards him.

"Chiyo!" Nori repeated, trying to crawl to her. They met in the middle, though it was slightly closer to Wesley, and embraced, both of them on their knees.

Tears immediately came to Chiyo's eyes as she cried, "I didn't think you'd ever find me."

Nori whispered in reply, "I didn't think you were alive."

Wesley let them hug for a second longer before interrupting, "Sorry to ruin the moment, but Nori's dying. Do you know how to get out of here?"

Covering his mouth when he coughed a few more times, Nori realized he was now coughing up blood. When Chiyo put the coughing and the dying together, she rushed to her feet, lifting Nori up with her. She looked at him for a second, noticing immediately how weak he really was as he fell helplessly into her arms. Still crying, she helped Nori get over to Wesley and then helped Wesley to carry him over to halfway between door 12.2 and 12.3.

After feeling around on the rocks for a second, she muttered, "God, I know it's here somewhere." She felt around for a moment longer before finding the right spot which opened a panel on the wall. "Where do we want to go?" She asked.

"Uh…" Wesley tried to come up with a response quickly. "His house, or Aerith's maybe."

"Do you know where this Aerith lives?"

"Uh, no."

"Nori's house then, you still live in the same place, don't you?"

"Uh-uh," Nori countered miserably. "Six-three-two-one…South Riverside Drive," he explained one word at a time. "Fantasy-land."

"You don't even live in Japan any more?" Chiyo asked, surprised, as she typed in the address Nori gave her. She pushed enter and prayed it would take them to the right place.

A moment later, all three appeared in Sora's living room. Nehemiah looked up from the couch to see what the noise was, and jumped up when he saw Chiyo.

Hugging her, but not as lovingly as Nori had, he exclaimed, "Chiyo, it's great to see you. What happened to Nori?"

Wesley looked to the stopwatch. "He's dying…has exactly three minutes and forty-seven seconds to live…We gotta get to a computer."

"How is that going to help?" Nehemiah questioned.

"Don't got time to explain, just watch over him. Chiyo and I are going to find a computer."

Wesley and Chiyo ran out the front door and into the street. There were quite a few people hanging around, so they started asking everyone if they had a computer. A minute passed and the two still hadn't found a computer. Wesley kicked at a rock on the ground after talking to another person who had no idea what a computer was.

He mumbled under his breath, "We should have gone to my house. My next door neighbor has a computer."

Chiyo was just as frustrated as Wesley was, so she walked over to where he was. "Well this isn't working."

"We can't give up just yet," Wesley stated, having rested long enough to try again.

"But there's no one new here…" Chiyo called, chasing after him, "We've talked to all these people already." Then, she stepped into a shadow and looked to see what had caused it. It was the public address tower, which gave her an idea. She caught up with Wesley and exclaimed, "Follow me, I've got an idea!"

She grabbed his hand and led him up several flights of stairs to the top of the public address tower. Halfway up darkness returned, and the pair stopped for a second, shocked as the entire neighborhood turned to chaos. After a second, they began running again. It didn't matter why darkness had returned; they had someone to save. When they finally reached the top she picked up the microphone and announced so people could hear for a mile around, "Calm down…"

No one reacted to her order, so she continued, "We need your help…Can anyone help us?" That didn't work, so she just shouted, "Would you all just SHUT UP!"

Suddenly, silence filled the air, and Chiyo explained, "If there is anyone who hears this that has a computer, WE NEED IT!" Suddenly, tears came back to Chiyo's eyes as she continued, "My best friend is going to die, if you can't help me. You need to save Nori."

No one responded, at least not the way they had hoped. One person looked up and shouted that they were very sorry they couldn't help. Feeling like there were no other options, Chiyo desperately repeated the message in Japanese. After she had finished, Wesley followed suit, taking the microphone and translating the message to Spanish. Wesley also added to the Spanish one that Nori was trying to save the world from darkness—which he obviously took too far, but Nori was trying to rescue Tia, the source of light.

He had almost started on French, getting out, "Et Français," when a young Hispanic man called up from behind them.

"Hola!" He replied, adding in Spanish, "I can help."

Chiyo and Wesley ran back down the stairs as fast as they could and straight to the man. "Where is your house?" Wesley demanded urgently.

"Follow me," was all the man said.

"Run," Wesley ordered, "we only have two minutes." They ran as fast as they could to the man's house. When they got there, Wesley took the watch and handed it to Chiyo saying, "One minute, let me know if we run out of time."

The man showed the two of them the computer and kicked his wife off of it for Wesley. Wesley looked for the USB port to plug in the memory stick, but there wasn't one on the front. Looking on the back of the computer, he finally found it and plugged the memory stick in. A moment later a small window appeared on the screen with one file in it: "Nori's Story."

"Well, that's easy enough," Wesley muttered, double clicking on the file to open it.

While they were waiting for it to open, Chiyo announced, "Thirty seconds."

"Come on," Wesley begged the computer to move faster. Finally Microsoft Word appeared and the story showed up too. Wesley skimmed through the first paragraph to make sure Lionel hadn't hid anything there. When Chiyo said there was only fifteen seconds left, however, he skipped all the way to the end and sighed with relief to see the line, "And then Nori died, a slow and painful death."

Wesley quickly deleted that section and pushed save. Chiyo read the time as ten seconds when the computer had finished saving the changes. Wesley just exited out of the window, and Chiyo looked at him, realizing it was done. She jumped in his arms, hugging him.

"Oh it worked!" She exclaimed, "You saved Nori!"

Wesley grabbed the memory stick out of the back of the computer and tried to get Chiyo off of him by suggesting, "We should go back and make sure he's okay now."

"Yes," Chiyo agreed excitedly, running back out of the house.

They weren't in quite as much of a hurry to get back to Sora's house, but they were still speedy about it. When they returned, Wesley made Chiyo knock on the door and wait for Nehemiah to answer it. After all, Nehemiah didn't know anything about what was going on.

When Nehemiah opened the door, he exclaimed, "You're back! Did it work?"

Chiyo had an excited look on her face—mostly in her eyes. "Can I see Nori? Where is he?"

Nehemiah let her in. "Down that hallway, the second door on the left," he explained. Chiyo rushed toward the room, and Wesley went to follow. Nehemiah stopped Wesley from entering.

"Who are you?" He asked suspiciously. "There've been a lot of people coming to see Nori lately that I don't know. Should I trust you, seeing as you've been hanging out with someone who Nori has been looking for forever? How should I know you didn't kidnap her? And why, when you came in last time, was Nori almost dead?"

Wesley crossed his arms in offense. "I honestly haven't met either of them before today. Some fairy came and told me to save him. Don't accuse me of trying to hurt him when I spent all bloody day risking my life for his." Frustrated, Wesley just pushed past Nehemiah and started toward Nori's room. Nehemiah was starting to get tired of people doing that, but he just followed Wesley to Nori's room.

When they got there, Chiyo was already on the bed straddling Nori. He was still unconscious, yet Chiyo leaned down to kiss his forehead. Then, she grabbed his cheeks and promised, "I am never letting go of you again, you know that. You'll never get away from me."

Nehemiah and Wesley just smiled at her from the doorway. What more could they do?

A second later they heard the front door open and another person shouted through the house, "I've got donuts!" When he heard no response, he started searching the house. Eventually he made it to Nori's room. He began to ask, "What are you doing in here?" when he saw Chiyo on the bed and instead shouted, "Chiyo! We all thought you were dead!"

Chiyo looked up to see Nori's old friend Vash, and jumped off the bed to hug him too. Vash dropped the box of donuts on the floor to catch her. Wesley was more interested by the donuts than the reunion of two friends, so he knelt down, opening the box.

After giving the two a while to calm down from the original excitement of seeing each other, Wesley mentioned, "Three are missing."

Vash looked down, slightly confused, but when he realized what Wesley was talking about, he replied, "Yeah, I ate a couple on the way back. I couldn't help it."

Nori woke up for a second to mumble, "You let go."

No one understood what he'd said except for Chiyo who realized that she had already broken her promise. She rushed back to Nori and hopped on the bed again, grabbing his hand and whispering, "I'm here now. I'm yours forever." By then, Nori was asleep again, but Chiyo didn't move from his side.

At that, Nehemiah turned to Wesley and questioned, "So you got him back, but where are the other three?"

Wesley looked up from the donuts on the floor to respond, "Um…I don't even know who they are. CrawFish got Tiara—whatever that means—and the other two went to see Aerith…course, I don't know who she is or if they got to her okay, but the short one with the whacko hair was really not feeling good and the tall one had a major sunburn. And which ever one is Sora, he's gonna be in big trouble for getting out."

Vash and Nehemiah exchanged a sad look, and Nehemiah slid down the wall to the floor.

"So I suppose that isn't good news then?"

"You don't know who CrawFish is, do you?" Vash asked. He didn't wait for Wesley to confirm before he explained, "It's how we don't get in trouble for dis-ing the lobster."

"Oh," Wesley agreed, "no that isn't good."

Nehemiah continued, "And if Sora needs Aerith's help, he's hurt pretty bad…he should make it back fine, though."

As if Sora could hear him say that, the door opened again, and Nehemiah, Vash, and Wesley went to see who it was. Meeting the newcomers at the edge of the hallway and the living room, everyone was happy to see Sora and Warren there safe…enough.

"Have you guys heard from Nori yet?" Sora asked immediately. He had been holding himself up well for quite a while, but he lost his strength again for a second, falling backwards. Warren caught him before he hit the ground, and the two of them looked up, both smiling embarrassedly. It was certainly a Kodak moment to see the bright red face of a man who usually looked so serious bashfully holding up the ditzy one.

"Yeah," Nehemiah answered after a second. "He's actually here."

"And you made it here too," Sora noted happily as he passed by Wesley to get to his and Nori's shared room. "That's good. Tiara was so worried about leaving you in there…thanks."

Wesley smiled, thinking to himself, If you only knew the reason I survived is because I told them where you were. It's me who should be grateful you're still alive. All five of them returned to the room. Warren chuckled slightly to see Chiyo spooning with Nori, her face buried in his hair. Sora, though, recognized the ashy blonde colored hair and slender frame.

In shock, he stuttered, "Is that? Is that Chiyo?" He approached the bed to get a closer look at the girl.

Vash gave an affirming, "Yup," that made Sora smile.

"That'll make Nori happy when he wakes up…Is he all right? What happened? You guys didn't find Tia did you?"

Everyone looked to Wesley, expecting an answer. He didn't really know that much of what happened, but he told all that he did know. Then, they went to go play video games to wait for Nori to wake up. There were five of them and only four controllers, though, so they would take turns staying in the room with Nori. Vash had just left, to be replaced by Warren—the sad loser of the race they had just finished. Warren was still in the doorway when Nori stirred with a moan and opened his eyes.

"Don't wake up," Warren joked, "I was enjoying admiring your new girlfriend. You two were adorable lying like that."

Nori moaned and mumbled a response that obviously meant, "Not funny, leave me alone."

"Die, die, die," came the sound of Roxas's evil voice from the living room.

"Roxas!" Nehemiah exclaimed, "This isn't a killing game!"

Nori sat up tiredly, but urgently, and asked, "Is he okay?"

"Yeah," Warren shrugged, "darkness is back, so we're kinda like," he held his hand up and moved his pointer finger in a circle to mean loopy.

Nori listened for a while, quietly watching Chiyo sleep while he did so. He was trying to account for all his friends by listening to their voices, and after accounting for all but one, he questioned, "Where's Tiara?"

"Vash says Wesley said you lost her."

Nori's eyes glazed over as he remembered that part. "Can I talk to Vash?" Nori wondered after a second.

Warren shrugged again and left the doorway to get Vash. Nori just looked at Chiyo while he waited for Vash to return. She scooted closer to Nori and pulled her arms around his waist.

When Vash came in, he asked, "What is it Nori?"

"My author's gone," Nori replied.

"And?" Vash probed, needing to know more information than that.

"Well, I need to go tell her family…that we lost her, that is. Shouldn't they know?"

"Do you want me to do that?" Vash was still trying to figure out what exactly Nori was getting at.

"And—and her friend too," Nori continued. "Her friend was so nice. No, I don't want you to do it for me. I have to do it, right? Would you come with me?"

"Nori, you don't have to do that right now."

Nori just nodded his head and slipped out of Chiyo's grasp. "Could you take me to the gate? And then you can tell her friend, and I'll take care of the family."

Vash tried to reemphasize that it wasn't necessary, but Nori wouldn't have it. Eventually, Vash gave in. Nori stood up, a little wobbly, but he hardly needed Vash's help at all. I guess Vash was more there for moral support. Everyone was too involved in the game to notice them leave. It had turned into a giant wreck with Roxas and Warren phasing in and out of their evil modes. They would just randomly spin out on the track causing near a hundred cars to pile up behind them.

Nori and Vash made it to the gate all right, though. That was a bit surprising because of the darkness, but Nori was able to make the gate work by following the same steps Tia Dalma had used to get through it last time. First, he sent Vash to Becca's house, and then he stepped through to my house. He stood there in my room for a second, just trying to get his thoughts together. Then, he left my room to go downstairs to find my family.

The first person he came across was Dusty, who exclaimed, "Nori, you're back! Can you take me now?"

Nori shook his head in shock. He cried, "No, I'm not bringing anyone else back…I lost your sister." That hadn't come out the way he had planned or practiced so many times in his head, but he was glad it was out.

Dusty looked at Nori stunned. "What do you mean you lost my sister?"

"Like she's gone! Like I'm never going to find her because Lionel took her too."

Dusty was speechless for a moment before she mentioned, "I could help you find her. I'm really good with stuff like that. I'm the mastermind behind most of her ideas."

"No," Nori insisted. "I already lost one person from your family. I don't need to lose two."

Dusty pouted but seemed like she had given in. Nori just turned and went back to Tiara's computer to go home. This had been harder than he'd expected. He just gloomily stepped back to Fiction-land. Nori looked around at the Outlands as he stood there waiting for Vash to return. He was really surprised that everything was suddenly light again but didn't really feel like thinking about it.

Surprised by a little motion to the side of him, Nori turned to look and saw none other than my sister. "What the—?" Nori exclaimed in shock. Then, when he realized who it was, he let his head drop into his hands. "You're not supposed to be here," he complained. Knowing he couldn't just let her stay, he ordered firmly, "You go home now! 'Cuz I can't keep an eye on you or promise to protect you or—"

"Please," Dusty begged, pushing her bottom lip out and opening her eyes really wide. "You don't have to look out for me."

Nori just stood there, trying to figure out how to say no. That was one thing he wasn't good at. A second later, Vash walked by, and Nori almost begged him to help make Dusty go back to Earth. There was a problem with that, though. He had a pile of donuts in one hand and Becca hanging onto the other one. He was way too easy to convince of something, Nori thought to himself, all you ever had to do was give him donuts.