Sorry for it being such a long time since my last update...Not like anyone's reading this anyhoo.
Well then, usually I thank the creators of various characters in my story, but this time I would NOT like to thank SquareEnix for creating the big green hole. That place scares me...
Warren immediately took his place on the couch—that had been returned to its proper location—and concernedly asked, "What is going on?"
Vash explained, "While we were cleaning up, the subject of Queen Dalma just happened to come up. We got to talking about the fact that she wasn't in Writers' Block, and I wondered if she might be in CrawFish's castle…"
Nehemiah replied, "Could be, but that's so difficult to get to. We probably couldn't get there."
Roxas came out of the room where Nehemiah had laid him rubbing his eyes and mentioned quietly, "It's not near as hard as it used to be since his castle burnt down and he moved into The Castle That Never Was."
"How is that possible?" Nehemiah countered, "There's all those Organization XIII people there. They could still totally kick our butts."
Roxas just shrugged. "I dunno."
Vash agreed with him, though. "Sometimes a lot of people is too many people. It becomes too easy to pretend like you belong."
"Well, if it's so easy now, how do you get there?" Nehemiah demanded of Roxas.
"I dunno," was all he said.
"Come on, you used to live there. How can you not remember how to get there?"
"I dunno. I just don't."
Suddenly Sora's voice came from the living room, "No Roxas, you could get there easily, not the rest of us."
Roxas jumped to the side a little, questioning, "How'd you get over there?"
Sora hopped onto the television and sat with his feet dangling, "We separated. Do you have a problem with that?"
"It just…surprised me, I guess."
"Well, the fact is, anyone who's been there before could get in very easily."
"Yeah, 'cuz they remember how to get there," Roxas mentioned. "I don't remember though."
Sora kind of laughed. "No, it's not that. The forest remembers you. Because you've been accepted by the forest once, it will recognize you and not try to kill you. The rest of us would all be attacked by the wild things that guard it."
"Right, so I can wander around in this forest for days, completely lost, and starve to death…except I can't die, so I'd just starve."
"Organization XIII wouldn't let that happen Roxas. If they saw you were lost in the forest, they'd come get you out…They miss you, you know."
"They do?" Roxas asked, instantly losing himself in thought. He was trying to remember something…anything from the Organization. "Did I really have friends over there?"
Sora shrugged. "Seems like it."
Then Roxas burst out, "But all I can remember about them is you fighting them, you calling them bad. How can I go back there like nothing ever happened, not remembering who I liked, who I hated, what I acted like…and not just call them all bad?"
"Just start over, like you'd never ever met them before and let the relationships develop naturally."
"Who's he never met?" Nori asked as he entered the room, Chiyo still clinging to him.
"Organization XIII," Vash answered, a little confused by the conversation.
Nori frowned, knowing that Roxas had too met Organization XIII before. "No," he countered, "Roxas you used to live with them."
"And wouldn't it be a great idea if we sent him back?" Sora questioned from the television. Roxas just shook his head no, trying to get Nori to respond that way. After a second of waiting for Nori's blank stare of confusion to go away, Sora continued, "Tia might be there, you know, and we can't get there and look for her all in one trip without dying. It makes much more sense that we send him—who's been there before—to find her, and then once he has, we can plan how to break her out quickly, so less people get hurt."
Nori shrugged. "Sounds good to me."
"No!" Roxas countered. Then, he started trying to come up with other excuses. "But it's dark over there! What if I spend a couple weeks in the darkness and decide I don't want to come back? That might happen. Then, you destroyed me!"
"I'm gonna go take a shower now," Nori said, really ignoring the issue. Chiyo let go of Nori's hand as he walked toward the bathroom. Jokingly he inquired, "What? You don't want to come with me anymore?"
Sora just kept trying to convince Roxas. "I'll give you my phone. If you start to feel like you can't handle something, just call, and we'll come get you immediately."
"…and after a little while, you showed up. We still haven't convinced him," Vash finished.
"That's because I'm not going," Roxas insisted.
Warren leaned back on the couch, letting everything register, before he said, "You can't convince him to do it if he doesn't want to."
"What?" Sora asked in shock. "You're the only one who hasn't agreed with us."
"That's because I'm the only other one that's been on that side of the Outlands!" Warren replied harshly. "It's not as easy of a life as you may think…You realize, chances are, the moment he gets over there, he'll immediately rejoin the organization—not just in pretend, but because you just can't help being evil. He won't find Tia Dalma, and if…in the rare occasion that he does find her, he won't tell you."
"Well, why didn't you say that?" Nehemiah asked Roxas.
"I don't remember that," Roxas answered, slightly embarrassed. "I just know I don't like."
A second later, Warren added, "But it is a good idea." Roxas looked at Warren in shock. His last source of support was gone.
When everyone looked to Warren for an explanation, he continued, "If you were just asking him to go into the forest—or one of the cities of the forest—I would support your idea one hundred percent…granted that someone went with him. Because together, there's a certain element of peer pressure…a dare that passes around among friends to see who can cross the furthest back into the light without getting sucked into its grasp. We could bet each other that the other one wouldn't be able to find Tia Dalma…taunt one another until one of us did something we would get in trouble for—like breaking her out of jail. But if you're asking him to find her in The Castle That Never Was, no one can go with him."
Everyone was quiet for a moment, trying to find a way around this new obstacle. Becca wandered into the house just in time to hear Sora volunteer, "I'll go with him."
"Where are we going?" She asked.
"Not you," Sora corrected, "just me and Roxas because I can combine with him again and no one will know I'm there."
"What do you mean you guys can combine?" Becca questioned, still confused.
They just ignored her, and Warren crossed the room to kneel next to Roxas inquiring, "Can you do it now Roxas? If Sora goes with you?"
"Is it that important?" He wondered quietly.
"It's that important…it's the only way."
"And he'll bring me back?"
"He'll bring you back," Warren reassured.
Roxas silently stood and approached Sora who hopped off the television. "You're going then?" Sora asked, jokingly poking Roxas in the nose.
Roxas grumpily returned the gesture, smashing Sora's nose as he reluctantly agreed, "I guess."
A silence filled the room with expectation as Sora and Roxas just looked at each other. After a second, Roxas started fading and became transparent like Nori had been when he was dead. That worried Becca and Dusty who had seen him like that, but they didn't get a chance to express their concerns. He went all sparkly and disappeared for a moment before taking over Sora like he had a thousand times. Then, where there was once two, stood just Roxas. Becca was shocked, but she wasn't exactly sure what she wanted to say about it. Without saying a word, he went to their room to gather a few things. Warren casually walked back to his seat on the couch that had been stolen by Becca and Dusty. He easily picked Dusty up and slumped onto the couch, dropping her to the floor.
"Hey!" Dusty complained, but when she saw the kind of blank look on his face, she asked kindly, "Are you worried about your weird, split personality, friend?"
He glared at her, seemingly worried about what she might say when he responded with a slight, "Yes."
"I'm not mocking you," she comforted from the floor. "I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but I'm sure he'll be fine."
Roxas was still in the room gathering a few things absentmindedly when Nori got out of the shower. He buckled his belt and threw on a couple new shirts before inquiring, "So they convinced you to go then?"
Roxas shrugged and mumbled a little—which meant yes. A second later, though, he dropped his bag to his side and mentioned, "What if I forget you all? I mean, I forgot them when I came here, so why wouldn't I forget you when I go there?"
Nori smiled as he grabbed his wallet out of one of many pockets. Casually, he put one arm around Roxas, holding out a picture for him, and saying, "You won't forget us. Remember this?"
Laughing, Roxas asked, "Is that? How'd you get a picture of that?"
The picture was of Nori, Roxas, and Warren. It was Roxas's first time at the Pig and Whistle tavern around the block, and he hadn't liked his first taste of alcohol. He ended up spitting it up all over himself, and then Warren tried to force him to have more. The picture was of Warren pouring a beer on Roxas's face while Nori stood behind giving them both bunny ears.
"The bartender took it," Nori replied. "Here, it's for you to remember us by. Stick it in your shoe, so that you'll know we'll always be with you and Warren will always be there to convince you to do things you don't want to."
Roxas pulled off his shoe, placed the picture in the bottom of it, and stuffed his foot back in. "Thanks Nori," he said, pausing to look back when he reached the doorway.
"You won't forget us now will you?" Nori questioned.
"No," Roxas answered surely.
The pirate gang was caught—if you could call them a pirate gang. The only two who really claimed to be pirates were Wesley and Luffy. You couldn't call them anime either because Wesley wasn't anime; neither were they necessarily friends yet. They were sea farers, and they had all gathered to become the crew of one pirate ship…now if only they could get to their ship.
Zoro and Wesley were tied back-to-back by their hands, as were Nami and Tiara. Both were sitting on wooden plates being carried by a mob of pigmy looking natives. Luffy was in even worse shape, being tied to a pole by himself to be roasted like a pig. No one spoke as they were carried away, but all were obviously trying to come up with a plan. Marluxia wasn't around anymore, but that didn't make things any easier because all five knew that the second they escaped he would return. That made planning an escape twice as difficult; they also had to predict how he would attack in return.
Wesley was fidgeting, like playing with the rope holding their hands together, or scooting around—closer, further, left, right…Zoro couldn't tell if he was nervous or actually doing something until he felt what he was sure was a knife between their hands. He looked to Wesley in shock, asking silently with his eyes, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
Gesturing with his eyes to the man in front of him with Zoro's three swords, Wesley whispered, "If I get the perfect chance, I won't hesitate to take it."
Zoro sighed, quietly inquiring, "Do you really think that's the best idea? After all—"
Before he had finished, though, the rope tying the two of them together was cut, and Wesley jumped down on his end of the plank, flinging Zoro over his head. At the same exact instant, Wesley threw the knife into the pole that Luffy was tied to, only a few inches from his hands, and slid off the plank. Zoro landed on his feet and quickly grabbed his three swords. Now that they were breaking out, they had to go all the way. Wesley, who hadn't been able to find the person holding his sword in the crowd, grabbed a bow and some arrows from the pigmy nearest him.
Zoro and he stood back-to-back, once again ready to fight in all directions. Zoro was taking care of the people up close, while Wesley would shoot the people in the distance. Of course, Wesley refused to shoot anyone fatally, and he only shot the ones that were shooting back at them. Zoro, on the other hand, just sliced away. Wesley didn't like that, so he looked anxiously over to Luffy to see how he was coming at getting out.
Instead of just moving the rope to the knife like Wesley had expected him to do, Luffy had stretched out his hands, wrapped them around the knife, and was trying to pull it out of the pole. It eventually worked, and he began cutting the rope. Wesley had to look back to the pigmies because there were more shooting at them again. He carefully aimed, pulled back, and shot one in the shoulder. Then, he moved on to the next one: aim, pull back…and then he got shot in his outstretched arm.
An arrow from straight in front of him had hit him, not perpendicularly but parallel, digging in and going halfway up his arm. He let go, falling to one knee. His arrow went straight into the ground. He took a second to grow accustomed to the pain before gritting his teeth and slowly pulling it out. Trying again, he aimed, pulled back, winced, shot, and missed. The pain was too much for the strain it takes to use a bow, but, lucky for him, Luffy had gotten free.
The sound of, "Gomu gomu no," proved it, and his arms flailed viciously as he announced, "Machine gun!" A second later, every single pigmy had been knocked unconscious by his punches, and none of them were dead because of that.
Zoro ran to the two girls—who were still sitting on the palate, but it was now on the ground—cut them loose, and hurried off toward the shoreline stating, "We've got to get outta here as quickly as possible, before that girly-man comes back."
Wesley grabbed one of his belt-like ties from around his waist and quickly tied it around his arm to stop the bleeding before joining the other four in running off. When he caught up with them on the shore, he asked, "So where do you think we are?"
Zoro looked up in the sky and around at the sea. "I don't know. Nami, you're the navigator…" He left it open for her to answer.
Nami pulled out a map and thought for a while, examining everything she could see, before replying, "If I had to make a guess, I'd say The Mysterious Island," as she pointed to it on the map.
Everyone gathered around, Wesley noting, "I thought that was uninhabited."
"So did I," Zoro agreed. "I guess not."
"So what now captain?" Nami asked, and the group looked to Luffy for an answer.
Seeing everyone else look to Luffy, Wesley was in shock as he inquired, "You're the captain?"
"Yup," Luffy agreed braggingly. "I'm going to be the Pirate King."
Sora and Roxas had just reached the edge of the Outlands. Roxas had been doing really good about not hesitating or looking back too much, but there he stopped. After thinking for a moment, he sighed.
"This is it. There's no turning back after this, is there?" Roxas realized quietly.
Mm-hmm, Sora agreed from inside him, adding as if he were likening it to the adventure of a lifetime, Come on, let's go!
Roxas took a deep breath and stepped into the forest. Nothing seemed to change. He looked around for a second and then wondered, "What now?"
Uh, walk in a straight line. Maybe something will come to you.
Walking along for a little while didn't seem to help any. "Nothing's coming to me," he commented, stopping again.
Would you just stop talking to me? You seem like an idiot talking out loud to yourself like that.
"Well, you're talking back. What am I supposed to do?"
Think, Roxas; think. We can hear each other when we just think. No one else is hearing me but you. The entire world could hear you.
Oh, okay, Roxas replied in his head. He looked around for a while again, realized he couldn't see the edge of the forest anymore, and asked, Which way was straight again?
I dunno, Sora admitted, just choose a direction.
Roxas randomly chose to walk a little to the left of the direction he was facing. He only took a couple steps before he was stopped in his tracks by a little voice ordering in a sing-song tone, "Follow the yellow brick road." Suddenly, a pathway appeared directly behind him.
Did you hear that? Roxas questioned.
Hear what? Sora replied.
Suspiciously, Roxas ignored the voice, continuing forward, but it repeated itself, more urgently. A large neon sign appeared in front of him flashing, "GO BACK!" That, Roxas thought.
I didn't hear anything, Sora responded, confused.
What about the sign? Do you see the sign? Roxas gestured directly in front of him.
No.
The voice repeated itself again, this time emphasizing each word to make sure it was understood, "Follow…the…yellow brick…road."
"Fine!" Roxas shouted, "I'll follow the yellow brick road!" He turned around and walked toward the pathway, asking Sora, This is yellow isn't it?
Is what yellow? Sora inquired.
The road I'm on.
What road?
What do you mean I'm not on a road? Can't you see it? Roxas was getting frustrated.
No, Sora answered shortly.
Oh…maybe something's coming to me.
They followed the road for a very long time as it wound around through the forest. Sometimes it was wide, and sometimes it was very narrow. It was narrow then, and Roxas was following the twisting path exactly, which was starting to make Sora sick.
Are we going in circles? Sora questioned nauseously. Roxas stopped walking, slightly startled to have heard Sora's voice again. Since walking on the road was the same as walking on a flat balance beam, he almost fell over as he tried to keep himself from stepping off the road.
As soon as he caught himself, Roxas replied, I don't think so. I'm just following the road. He looked out ahead and noticed that it curved to the right for a while and then curved back, taking probably fifty feet to get ten feet in front of him. Should I not? Sora didn't answer; though, Roxas could tell he probably was shrugging.
Cautiously, Roxas stepped off the path to just walk straight across. Halfway there the entire path disappeared, and he found himself surrounded by wolves. He glanced around at all of them once, just to make sure he knew what he was up against. The pathway appeared again back where he had come from as the voice started repeating in his head, "Follow the yellow brick road." So he would have to walk all the way around. Roxas formed a key in his hands to get past the wolves, and it was easy for him to clear a path to the yellow brick road. He wouldn't dare question it again.
"Well isn't that something," a cloaked figure commented to some random camera man. "He's passed, what, three tests now. The forest is mostly accepting his presence, he's receiving our orders, and he can muster a keyblade…" He chuckled slightly. "Could this really be Roxas returning to us? Send him another test."
"But what Sir?" The random camera man asked.
The cloaked figure pondered for a while before questioning, "What other color of road do you have?"
"Any you want, I believe," the man responded, slightly confused. He brought up a list of colors, and the cloaked figure pointed to a grey one near the center of the screen. "Grey? May I inquire as to why you chose that one Sir?" The man asked curiously.
"Roxas is slightly color blind. He can't see the color yellow," the cloaked figure explained. "If this is the true him, he shouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two roads."
Roxas stood at the crossroads, completely lost as to what to do next. Both roads looked exactly the same. They were the same size, the same color, the same smoothness. Was there even anything different about them? Would both paths lead to the same place? Left, or right; left, or right? He couldn't figure it out. Afraid that Sora would ask him why he was wasting time again, he just chose one. Right. A second later, a shock zapped through his arm and the voice came back.
"This is not the yellow brick road. Please follow the yellow brick road."
He took a step back, frustrated, and followed the left path instead. That continued for a while, until he came across another split in the road. Remembering that it had been on the left side the time before, Roxas tried that direction first, since both ways still looked exactly the same. This time, the shock came in his other arm as the voice repeated, "This is not the yellow brick road. Please follow the yellow brick road."
Roxas fell to his knees and shouted into the air, "Why are you doing this to me? I am so sick of walking around in this stupid forest, going nowhere and getting shocked! I'm lost. Completely and thoroughly lost. Where am I?"
No one answered him, though. Only the voice continued to order, "Please get back on the yellow brick road."
After a second, Roxas stood back to his feet and followed the right path. The next intersection he came to had six paths to choose from and a small well in the center. Roxas had no idea which to choose first—and he knew he'd likely have to try every one of them before he got the right one—so he walked around the well several times until he was sure he couldn't remember which direction he'd come from. Then, he just stopped at a random pathway and chose it. He walked toward it, and the voice didn't object. He got on it, and the voice still let him continue.
Roxas laughed to himself in disbelief. Oh my, I actually got the right one, he thought.
Sora answered for the first time in a while, I only wish I knew what was going on with you.
A moment later, Roxas spotted the castle through the trees. Completely abandoning the yellow brick road, that still wanted him to wind around for a while, Roxas just ran straight toward it. He was thankful to see something other than trees, and happy that he'd at least accomplished part of his job. The voice started telling him to get back on the road, but he ignored it. Another wolf tried to get him to comply, but he simply sliced it down with his keyblade. He was on the home stretch. Nothing was going to stop him now!
Not even Sora could stop him as he started shouting, Whoa, wait a second. Slow down Roxas…Stop, stop…Stop! Stop! STOP! Roxas still wasn't listening. Look out! Sora exclaimed in the last second, and Roxas slid to a stop flailing his arms wildly to make sure he didn't go over the edge of a steep cliff that dropped off into this giant, neon green hole. Sora sighed with relief. That had been a close one.
Of all the things for Roxas to catch, it was the sigh that grabbed his attention, and he demanded, Oh, so you knew this was here? Nice of you to tell me.
I did tell you, you goof. Didn't you hear all the STOP-ing? Sora replied, frustrated.
Huh? Roxas asked, and Sora just sighed again. After a second, Roxas questioned, Well, you knew it was here. How do we get around it?
That's easy. Just use your key.
Roxas formed his key in his hand and looked at it for a while before pointing it at the building. A moment later a pathway formed from where he was standing to the door of the castle. Roxas smiled, put the key away, and unsurely took the first step onto the path. He was really there now.
"Hmm," the cloaked figure mumbled to himself, "the kid made it." He threw the hood off, revealing his shoulder-length, pink hair, as he commented, "Have someone be sure to greet him properly. I have other things I need to attend to."