Xaldin looked down at the pirate sprawled across the white, stone floor. He was much weaker, hardly even able to move, but he deserved it. Placing one of his six lances against the kid's throat at least got a reaction of Wesley opening his eyes halfway for a second.

"I'm not going to kill you," Xaldin mentioned, pulling the lance away. "That would be much too easy on you. You will be sorry you destroyed one of us." Then, he created a portal to leave the cell.

Zexion was still in there. He had watched all of the torture in wait to say one thing to Wesley when they were alone. He waited a couple seconds to make sure Xaldin wouldn't come back in before he said it.

"I dare you to break out," he said eventually.

Wesley swallowed, opened one eye, and raised the same eyebrow curiously.

"This cell, it should be inescapable, but then, the other was reputed to be so as well, and you managed to get out easily. I'd like to see you try again…as sort of a test for the new system I designed."

Wesley didn't respond at all.

"I'll insure your safety if you succeed—given that you don't actually leave the building. Remember that I'm asking you to test the system, not giving you permission to escape entirely. A pirate like you would try to use that excuse." He paused and then concluded the 'conversation' with, "Good luck," as he too left the cell.

Wesley just laid there.

A couple hours later, Lexaeus and Marluxia were walking through the white hallway in the castle, discussing an unusual occurrence that had confronted them that morning. Both had been sent on missions to different places, but both had been asked to attack the same person who, like Demyx, had the ability to clone herself. She could only do it once, though. Neither of them had succeeded, and both of them returned with the same scar: a question mark on their left peck. They found it quite coincidental, so they were exchanging tips to help defeat her the next time.

As they rounded a corner, they found Wesley sitting weakly in the middle of the hallway. When he saw them, fear flashed across his face, and he stood wobbly to his feet. Marluxia immediately took out his scythe and Lexaeus, a tomahawk. Wesley felt around for a weapon he could pull out. Not finding one, he smiled embarrassedly.

"What are you doing out of your cell?" Lexaeus demanded.

Knowing that they had every intention of attacking him, Wesley responded honestly, "I'm waitin' fer someone."

"Your extraction?" Marluxia questioned, raising the scythe to attack.

"No," Wesley insisted, "this kid, about my age. He's got an 'x' in his name, and…and silver hair that he always wears in his face like this." Wesley desperately grabbed his own hair and tried to pull it over one eye. It wasn't quite long enough, but they got the point.

"Zexion?" Both Nobodies guessed, looking to each other.

"Oh, is that what his name is?"

They looked back to Wesley, hate in their eyes, as Marluxia stated, "We'll take you to Zexion…after we kill you for murdering Number VII."

Wesley turned to run, but not quickly enough. The two vengeful Nobodies were already upon him.

Just like Xaldin, the two stopped right before Wesley reached unconsciousness and then dragged him back to the prison cell. They were going to leave him there while they looked for Zexion and bring Zexion back to the cell. When they got there, however, they were surprised to see Zexion standing in the middle of the cell, staring in total awe at the door which had completely fallen to pieces.

"What happened here?" Marluxia inquired, putting one hand on his hip.

Zexion looked curiously to the two Nobodies, then down at the limp pirate between them, and back at the door. Remembering his deal with Wesley from earlier, and the promise that he wouldn't get in trouble for doing it, Zexion ordered in a tone more commanding than the usual, "You let him go, right now."

"Number VI," Marluxia began in shock, "are you helping him get out? How dare you turn against us, you traitor."

Surprised to have gotten that response, Zexion stepped back in shock. "Oh…no, it's nothing like that," he defended. "I—I just told him nothing would happen if he broke out, since I asked him to do it."

"Why'd you do that?" Lexaeus wondered.

"Well…since it's the first time we've used this cell, I wanted to be sure I didn't miss something in its design," Zexion explained. Then, picking up one of the stone pieces, he finished, "Apparently I did." After a second, he continued examining the door, adding quietly to himself, "I wonder what it was."

"It's not something anyone but me would notice," Wesley mentioned softly. "You're right about it being unbreakable."

All three looked to Wesley, surprised, but mostly Zexion. Approaching the pirate, he questioned, "If it's unbreakable, then how did you get out?"

"With this," Wesley answered, holding out a small object.

Zexion took it from Wesley inquisitively, asking, "A paperclip?" He turned around and ordered to no one in particular, "Build me a new one. I will discover how he got out."

Curiously, Marluxia asked after a second, "What would you have us do with him in the mean time?"

"A five by five by five lead box with no seams should work," Zexion replied, exaggerating a little, "and make sure he has no paperclips this time."

Life in the Kyoko house hadn't been too eventful since the night before…at least not for the Kyoko himself. After Vash drug him back home, he slept. When he woke up the next morning, he slept. He wasn't in pain or anything, just exhausted. Finally, he lifted his drowsy head off his pillow and wandered into the living room. The four girls were already at the house. Chiyo, Kairi, Warren, and Vash were standing by the counter—Chiyo was actually sitting on it—trying to figure out where the Castle That Never Was was on the map. Everyone else was working on the invisible road.

After a second, Dusty jumped to her feet and exclaimed, "I've got it! I figured out where the road starts!"

"Finally, there's a reason for your existence," Warren mocked.

"So where is it?" Nori asked through a yawn.

"I don't know…yet," she corrected, and everyone's hopes died. "But I did figure out what the clue says. The triangle it talks about…it's like when someone is tapping phone calls, when you're talking to them, they can 'triangulate' your location using satellites—or 'flashing stars' as the clue calls them. The location is the destination…you have to call someone where you're going, so the forest will find your location and direct you to the correct invisible road."

"After all, that's the only way it can take you anywhere in the forest," Naminé agreed, acting like she'd known that at one point and was finally remembering it. It wasn't like she actually had to walk in the forest when she lived there.

"That really does make sense," Vash noted.

Warren thought for a second and then walked to the door calling, "Hey Nori, toss me your phone."

"Uh…why?" Nori wondered dumbly.

"I'm going to go call Roxas…find the beginning of the road," Warren explained slowly as Nori just stared at him as if he were retarded.

"Why?" Nori questioned eventually.

"Because I used to live in the forest, and he's in the Castle That Never Was, so I'm the only one who can call him without getting him killed."

Nori stared for a moment longer, before it dawned on him and he tossed the phone to Warren with a, "Oh, okay." Warren walked out the door and headed toward the forest.

Roxas wasn't in a good position to be interrupted at the time. Just after lunch, he had been hijacked by Vexen and taken to his lab in the basement of the castle. I'm not going to say whether or not it was white. He made Roxas sit down in a chair that looked like a dentist chair as he rummaged about in his cupboards for something.

After glancing around the room for a second, Roxas mentioned, "I really don't want to be here."

"Don't worry," Vexen assured, looking away from his cupboard momentarily and then searching some more. When he finally found what he was looking for, he walked back to the dentist chair with a vile and a needle, continuing, "It's not experimental. Everything we're doing today has been thoroughly proven to work."

"You mean I'm not the first person to lose my memories?" Roxas questioned, somewhat sarcastically.

Vexen mumbled some things inaudibly under his breath including the terms, "mice," "Heartless," and "hybrid."

Roxas got a disgusted and worried look on his face as he wondered, "What is it supposed to do?"

Vexen set the vile and needle down on a table and started hooking a machine up. "It's a quick way to determine what exactly you do have in your head still," he replied, smacking two patches onto Roxas's temples.

Roxas grabbed his head in surprise. What in the world was he going to do? A small monitor clipped onto the side of one nostril like a nose ring continuously checking his breathing rate. Then, a hat like the hair dryers in salons fell down over his head, and Vexen reappeared in front of him with a chuckle. Something was beeping in the corner, and Vexen apparently thought it was funny.

"Calm down kid," he suggested, "you're hyperventilating. This isn't going to hurt you at all…except for maybe a small prick from the needle."

Vexen filled the needle halfway with the liquid in the vile and was about ready to give Roxas the shot when Zexion walked through the door, announcing, "Sorry I'm late."

"Yes, I heard about your mistake with the pirate boy," Vexen responded as a sort of greeting, sort of a, Hey I'm over here, just so you know, sort of mocking his fellow intellectual.

Zexion rolled his eyes—though you could only see one—and joined Vexen by the chair as Vexen pushed the needle in Roxas's upper arm. "It wasn't a mistake. I did it on purpose because I knew if there was a loophole he'd find it. The mistake was in not standing outside of the door and waiting two hours for him to figure it out…So where are we?" He asked, changing the subject.

"Just a couple seconds and it will be working," Vexen answered.

The two just stared at Roxas and he just stared back until it started happening. His vision went blurry, his eyes crossed, his head bobbed once, and there was a small prick in his head Vexen hadn't mentioned. Then, everything felt normal again, just a little more distant. Both scientists smiled, and a second later, words started coming out of his mouth.

"Hey ladies, have either of you seen somebody named Sora?" He asked.

Vexen and Zexion moved to the back of the machine where there was a small screen that showed everything Roxas said. It was Port Royal, popped up, and then, Hey ladies, have either of you seen somebody named Sora? One of them looked at him flirtatiously and responded, "Sorry kid, never heard of him." After a second, the other one asked, "Say, you'll be looking pretty hard for this kid, won't you?" "Yes Miss," I replied. "If you happen to come across a certain Jack Sparrow, would you mind giving him a message?" "Sure." Then she slapped me, and they walked away.

The memories started out very slowly and then got faster and faster until the two scientists could neither read it on the screen nor understand it coming from Roxas's mouth. A second later, Vexen touched a button on the screen and a whole page of information printed out.

Vexen looked it over and handed it to Zexion, saying, "Seems to be working. Give it a couple hours and I'll have a book for you to read. By this evening, all his memories should be down in writing."

Zexion examined the page for a couple seconds, and then suddenly two short beeps came from the front of the room, followed by the sound of electric guitars. Roxas glanced distantly over to it like he recognized the noise from somewhere.

Noticing that reaction, Zexion walked toward the sound asking, "Is that his?" He quickly found the little red video phone and hit the answer button. "Hello."

The mysterious looking boy on the other end responded casually, "Whoa Roxas, you've had a makeover since the last time I saw you."

"Uh…" Zexion had to think of how to answer that. "Roxas can't talk right now."

"Oh, so he's only been back on our side for a day and he's already got a secretary. Of course."

"Not exactly."

"Oh, well I heard he'd gone back home finally, and I wanted to welcome him and see how he was doing. Could you give him that message?"

"I don't take messages," Zexion insisted.

"Thanks," Warren interrupted somewhere in the middle of it. Then a mischievous idea came to Warren, since he was surrounded with darkness. "Oh, and would you give him a big, squishy hug for me? Thanks kitten," he concluded, hanging up as a small bit of a yellow brick road appeared to the left. After a second, the road disappeared again, but not before Warren got there. He took a bottle of blue spray paint from his pocket and marked an 'x' where the road had been.

He chuckled quietly to himself. "It's been a while since I've vandalized something."

Zexion stared at the phone once he'd hung up. Eventually he wandered back over to Vexen in a daze, commenting, "He called me kitten."

"Who was it?" Vexen inquired.

"I think it was one of Roxas's old friends from last time he lived here."

"And he already found out Roxas is back?"

Zexion shrugged. "I'm going to go see how my new cell is coming along."

Once again, Roxas's sleep was plagued by flashbacks. So many memories had gone through his mind that day, some of them funny and plenty of them troubling. He finally got tired enough that when he closed his eyes he'd drift off to sleep instead of thinking back to his friends. It wasn't long that he got to rest peacefully, however.

Axel was on the clock tower with…me, and we were talking; though, I couldn't figure what about. Everything was completely silent. He seemed frustrated, gesturing a lot, and he kept standing up and sitting back down again. Eventually he gave a really large gesture and left through a portal. I stood up to follow him but somehow lost my footing. I started wobbling, like I was going to fall off the tower, and I couldn't catch my balance.

Then it flashed to a darker setting with a stained glass platform that I was also about to fall off of. For a second, I was standing on the edge of the bright green hole outside the castle, almost falling in, but it quickly returned to the stained glass platform. I had caught my balance, but for some reason the platform was tilting. There was nothing for me to hold on to, so I started sliding. I slid all the way across the platform and then off the edge…and fell…and fell…and fell.

After several seconds of falling there, I splashed into some sort of water and sunk through it for a while. Then, I was suddenly trapped inside Sora as he was falling out of the sky. Eventually, it returned to the clock tower. I hadn't caught my balance, and the second I returned, I tumbled off of it, falling helplessly toward the ground…

The second before Roxas knew he would have hit the ground, he sat up in bed so quickly he fell off of it. He sat there for a while, breathing heavily, slightly shaking. Did all that stuff really happen? Quickly he came to the conclusion that he should go see Axel, since he knew he wouldn't be sleeping anyway. Roxas peeked out of his room and into the hallway, walking a few doors down to Axel's room.

As Roxas was about to knock on the door again, he thought better about it. Axel wouldn't want to be bothered two nights in a row…especially if it were only for a little nightmare. Those things probably never happened anyways. He turned away just as one of Lionel's patrol robots rounded the corner to make sure no one was roaming the hallways at night. Roxas knew he wouldn't make it back to his room before he was spotted, so he knocked softly on Axel's door.

Axel opened it just as grumpily as last time. He was about to say something when Roxas held a finger to his lip to shush him. Using gestures, he explained the robot in the hallway and that he needed in quickly. Axel grabbed him and tossed him on the floor in his room.

"What was that for?" Roxas questioned quietly from the floor.

"I have to get you back for waking me up somehow," Axel answered sleepily. "What is it this time?"

"I keep falling."

"Wha—? Like off of things?"

"Yeah…Vexen cornered me earlier and talked me into a memory dump, so he'd know everything I knew, but it's, like, making me recall all these strange memories. Most of them I remember if I think long enough, but I had this dream about falling—"

"Yea Roxas," Axel congratulated, slumping back onto his bed, "you're remembering something."

"No, you're not listening. The stuff I'm remembering is stuff I remembered all along. I don't remember falling."

"Well…" Axel tried to think of a good explanation. "Maybe the dream is the first sign that the memories are coming back to you."

"How am I supposed to know it really happened, though, if I don't remember it ever happening?"

"I suppose when you remember it, you'll know it's real."

"I don't want to remember," Roxas shouted.

"Oh, is that what's really bothering you? You didn't have to wake up the whole organization to tell me that," Axel said calmly. After a second, he wondered, "Why?"

"'Cuz we tried it before, and it didn't work."

"Who's we?" Axel questioned curiously.

"Naminé, y'know. The magic memory lady…We spent a whole week working on it, and it only brought back one memory…of me fighting…Riku in the Dark City. Apparently, he beat me pretty bad and then ran away before it was finished. Anyways, the next day we were all hanging out in Sora's house, and I…just…attacked him. He packed up all his bags and left saying he was going to, 'travel the world,' and that he'd 'be back…someday.' I'd hate to think this time I'd destroy a different friendship…you know…hint, hint."

"You've got a girlfriend?" Axel guessed at what the hint was.

"No, stupid. You're my friend. What's to say that the next thing I remember won't make me want to kill you…after all, according to the dream, you're the reason I fell."

Axel thought for a very long time on what would be best to say before finally responding, "Well, I don't think you should fight me. You'd probably lose."

"Is that so?" Roxas demanded, slightly offended. "Why would I lose? I beat you last time."

"Yes, but it has been a very long time since you last fought, and…you can't remember a single thing about the time when you actually knew how to fight. Can you even still summon your Keyblades?"

"I can too," Roxas insisted, standing up with one giant key like Sora's instantly appearing in each hand.

"Okay," Axel agreed, not really wanting to fight his best friend even if he would win, "point taken. You can sit back down again."

Roxas quickly realized that he was doing exactly what he had wanted not to do and sat, frustrated, back on the floor. After a second, Axel inquired, "So Vexen got to you today?"

Roxas nodded.

"What did he do?"