Wesley was once again in his dark cell, propped up against the wall, glaring all his not vented emotions at Vexen and Zexion.

"Don't look so glum, Pirate Boy. We just saved your life," Zexion started.

"You should be grateful," Vexen added.

"Grateful I am indeed," Wesley weakly retorted in sarcasm. "After all the pain and misery you put me through, I finally thought it was over, and then I open my eyes to find my heroic rescuers are simply brining me back for more. Yes, that's exactly what I've always dreamed of!"

"Well, actually," Zexion stumbled out an answer, "this isn't meant that way. It's an experiment, for posterity's sake. It shouldn't hurt in the least. Just be honest with us…where did you get this?" He pointed to Wesley's forehead where was located a strange scar of a 'P.' It was a souvenir from his two years of lost memory. Wesley knew what it was: a visible sign that he had been caught once, by someone, somehow…that he almost died, but escaped. As for the when, where, and how details, they were gone.

Vexen looked at Wesley in expectation. He was clearly missing that part of his memory. It was apparent by the blank stare he gave as he reached to the scar on his face—the same one Roxas had given whenever he was asked a question. The 'P' had somehow been decorated by a snake wound around the pole, almost as if he took pride in the death sentence that hadn't killed him.

After waiting a couple seconds, "Vexen repeated Zexion, "Where did you get it from?"

"I…" Wesley began. "This 'P'…some British guy…I don't know…What is it to you?"

Zexion didn't answer; he just smiled and said, "We'll ask you the same question tomorrow, see if your answer has changed. Now, move on to the next one. Have you ever heard of something called the Panama Code?"

"Never," Wesley lied, obviously practiced in the art. He was good enough of a liar that, if Zexion hadn't already known the answer, only Luxord would have been able to tell.

Pretending like he believed, Zexion turned to leave and mentioned sadly, "Well then, I guess our experiment is over. You're just alive and alone in a place where everyone hates you."

"So what if I've heard of it?"

Zexion stopped in his tracks. "It is not of consequence to you what we use it for. All you need to know is that we need it."

"I would never tell that to you, even if I knew."

"You say that like you don't know it," Vexen pointed out.

"I don't!" Wesley insisted.

"Really?...It's fairly common knowledge that you figured it out," Zexion noted.

"Since when is that common knowledge?"

"So you admit you know it."

"That is not what I meant," Wesley corrected, "I don't know what it is. There's only like three people who knew I was even searching."

"Well, now there's five," Zexion said fiercely. "And if you don't tell us willingly we'll have to force it out of you."

"With what? I'm not that easy to 'persuade'."

"With this," Zexion answered, splashing a bucket of water between the two of them.

Wesley almost choked with laughter. "A bucket o' water? Ye really expect that to frighten me? I'm a pirate for heaven's sake!"

"Ah, but this isn't any ordinary bucket of water. It's a magical one from our friend Demyx."

Wesley laughed again; though, he was slightly concerned by why Zexion would consider it fear inspiring. "And what can a magical bucket of water do to me?"

"Kill you, just like any bucket of water."

"But why would you kill me? Then, you'd never get the code from me."

"That's where you'd be wrong," Zexion countered. "We can always drag you back to Miracle Max's, bring you back to life, and start the whole process over, drowning and all, until you give in."

That one word—drowning—started the whole process. Wesley fell to his knees clutching his head as his mind raced back to BLOODY WATER! I thought again. Bloody me! Breathing only made me need to cough, which would make me breathe more, and then I would die. I tried to hold my head away from the ship to reduce pain, but it wasn't working. Maybe I should just let myself die. I quickly brushed that thought aside. I had promised my friends that I would get old. Suddenly, I couldn't feel my fingers.

Were they slowing downI asked myself, closing my eyes to get rid of the cough. It wouldn't go away, and I quickly realized that I had slowed to a complete stop. I opened my eyes again, wondering why. My lungs hurt so bad that I was convinced I wouldn't feel the scraping even if we were still moving…but maybe not…everything hurt. Then, everything started blurring, blending. I still had halfway to go, but I couldn't…couldn't hold my breath. I needed…to get out

There was some sort of movement below me. Two…two, three…sharks. Sharks…blood… bloody blood! Circles…shark circles. Don't move…attackI thought, freaking out, knowing they would attack me. One of them had that hat, and he started talking to me in a strange Australian accent.

"Eh, Mate," he began, "you seem a bit tied up at the moment."

I glared at him sarcastically, so he continued, "I'm gonna eat ye, I'm gonna eat ye," in a sing-song voice.

I tried to say something back to him, but, being in water, I didn't succeed in the slightest.

Then the shark made fun of me, "Don' be so stupid, lad. I don' think ye've got gills like me and me Mates." With a laugh, he went to attack Wesley, but somehow the ship jerked just at the right moment. Instead of getting my leg, the shark attacked the rope restraining me, releasing me from the crew's death hold. Magically, my arms were also untied.

Spitting out a chunk of ship, the shark finished, "By the way, it seems ye've some mates in a boat out there lookin' fer ye. S'pose I'll have te let ye be this time…if ye make it to their boat 'fore I catch ye."

I took off swimming as fast as I could—considering I was drowning, bleeding, and on the edge of unconsciousness. The first place I went was the surface to gulp in a mouthful of air. The boat wasn't too far away, so I reached it, even though my body kept limply sinking into the ocean. The shark was right on my tail as my childhood hero, Jason, lifted me into the boat. I coughed for a very long time, and my vision once again was going blurry as I knelt there on the rowboat. Also in the rowboat was a man I knew to be the pirate king, Henry Morgan.

He sat there silently for a very long time before finally saying, "This is for you," and handing me a piece of paper. I recognized it from somewhere…It read: Dulucslegg Raoyny Att. Sonfiwe Tiie Tourou, Raoyny Hemi Hemi Tragennal Scnedr.

A moment later my captain had pinned me to the wall, a knife at my throat, and I still had that paper. I stared at it, trying to make sense of the scramble, but it just seemed like a bunch of random letters thrown onto a page and grouped together. In my mind the letters started swirling around on the paper like I might pass out, or like the little dots did the first time I read music. I just watched the swirling letters, with no idea where to start when suddenly the swirls started forming things. Quickly, I realized that the letters, when mixed around, formed words like: "Henry Morgan," "Wesley," and Congratulations." I rubbed my eyes, but they were still there.

A smile spread across my face as I started to write down the words I saw, until I remembered Barbossa was watching and I ripped it into as many pieces as I could, shouting, "It's useless!"

Barbossa turned me around to face him, and the knife was immediately back in place. "I saw you smile Swann. What did you see? What did it say?"

I looked at it with a sad smile and sighed, "It says: 'Congratulations Wesley, you figured it out. Sincerely, the Admiral Henry Morgan.'" Then, I pushed it back in his hands and questioned, "Are you happy?"

A moment passed in which what just happened sunk in for all of us. Then, Barbossa asked, "Ye know the password?"

I agreed, "I know the password," as the girl's name flashed across my mind: Melinda.

Zexion cocked his head to the side curiously as he watched Wesley gasping, choking, and holding his head and shrugged. "Perhaps it is a little painful. Eh, that's what clinical trials are for, right?"

He and Vexen were getting ready to leave the cell when, of all people, Roxas and Demyx appeared on the floor next to them, all bruised and bleeding, followed closely by an angry lobster. He demanded of the two surprised Nobodies, "What were your people doing in my prison shack?"

Confused, Vexen looked to Zexion, who returned the glance, and then questioned, "You put a prison shack on our Exile Island?" After a moment, Vexen growled, "How dare YOU!"

"That was our island," Zexion added. "It was perfectly designed so that no one returned. A shack in the middle of it reduces the efficiency by at least thirty-four point seven two one percent."

"Did you just figure that out in your head?" Vexen inquired quietly.

Zexion didn't get a chance to respond—though the answer was obviously yes—because Lionel, ever more angry, said, "You would dare to challenge me? I'm the king. I can put a shack wherever I so wish. Now excuse me, while I tell your superior about the ways the four of you went wrong."

The two Nobodies stood there silently, glaring at him as he left, and as soon as he was gone, Vexen unclenched his fists, commenting, "He's gonna get it one of these days. When it's just the two of us, I'll impale him on an ice spike!"

"Ever since he moved in with us, he treats us like we're servants," Zexion mentioned.

A brilliant idea suddenly came to Vexen, and he inquired, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Zexion looked at him dully with his one eye. "No. What are you thinking?"

Vexen just smiled evilly, and whispered one phrase, "Our enemy's enemy is our friend."

"What? You want—oh. I see," Zexion understood.

Hallom stared dreamily over the drifting river, as he perched thoughtfully on the porch railing. His ears were attentive in all directions, and his hair was blowing carelessly in the light breeze as I approached him from the back. He immediately heard my soft footsteps and acknowledged my presence without turning.

"I-I didn't expect you to find that," he stuttered in greeting.

"I was beginning to wonder, if we truly couldn't get out, how did they get it? And where does the food come from?" I responded, standing next to him and leaning on the railing.

Hallom pointed straight in front of him, I could only suppose in reply to the food question.

"They didn't make it far from their point of entry."

Still, Hallom said nothing, so I asked, "Why didn't you tell us how to get out?"

"T-there's a win-window you can jump out of too," he began, taking a long pause before continuing, "but I…I didn't want to get your hopes up."

"What do you mean?"

"This whole place…it's all an…illusion. With-without perfect directions, you won't get anywhere." I frowned at him confused, so he sighed, "You…you don't understand." I could see him thinking, I wish my friend Ace was here to talk for me, before he pointed to the same place as last time. "You don't see the food, right?"

"Uh-uh," I agreed.

"But it-it's there. Seven strides forward and two to the left."

"That close, and we still can't see it?" I wondered in confusion.

"And…once you get there, y-you can't see the shack. Without clear instructions the…the swamp en-engulfs you. Y-you may think you you're moving, but r-really…the island is s-spinning around you."

After thinking for a second, I decided, "I still don't understand."

He shrugged but didn't bother to say more. I didn't mind, though. In minutes I made him say more than he usually would all day.

I stood there for a while before suggesting, "I should probably go back inside then."

He nodded as I turned to go, but something prompted him to say, "Tiara I'm…I'm sorry 'bout your friends. I-I should have helped."

That time it was my turn to shrug. "It's probably a good thing you didn't step in Hallom. I didn't need to watch all of my friends be obliterated. I'm actually more worried about Wesley," I mentioned off-handedly.

"Who's…Wesley?"

"Another one of my creations…just I managed to get him involved in it all, and he has the tendency to get himself hurt. If Roxas is in that bad of shape, I can't begin to imagine what he's gotten himself into."

"Oh…sorry," Hallom muttered.

I smiled and hopped onto the railing, facing the opposite direction as him. "You know he reminds me of you?" Hallom nodded in recognition, so I continued, "You guys have the same past of abusive fathers, the same fear of intimate relationships. You're both short, and you both want to protect everyone you meet. The only difference between you two is that he reacted spitefully by challenging all authority—thus deserving the punishment he would unfailingly get—and you just cowered timidly in the corner, hoping it would end until you learned how to protect yourself…and he's from England three hundred years ago."

Hallom just nodded.

"Is the only way to get you to say something to ask you a question with a long-winded answer?"

That got a slight smile from him, and he forced himself to answer, "No, I thought you were still talking."

I clapped my hands excitedly. "You didn't stutter!"

He changed the subject back, stating, "I-I'd like to meet him…I guess."

"Ooh goody! I can tell you everything about him!"

Back at the castle, Zexion and Vexen had recruited Xaldin and brought him back to Wesley's cell so they could talk where Lionel didn't have any cameras yet. Unfortunately, Xaldin was trying to guess what they brought him there for; thus, preventing them from explaining the real reason. The first thing he notice when he entered the room was Wesley cuddled up in the corner, crying.

"I thought you were dead," he mentioned immediately.

Wesley just shrugged. He was obviously off in a different world of his own.

Vexen explained, "He's part of our memory experiments. We had to bring him back if we ever want Roxas to think again."

Xaldin nodded and turned his attention towards Roxas and Demyx across the room, asking, "So you had to bring them back as well, I suppose."

"Not exactly," Zexion countered. "Lionel brought them back. Apparently, he's erected Tia Dalma's prison shack on our Exile Island, and they were in it causing trouble, so he sent them back home."

After thinking for a moment, Xaldin agreed, "Hmm, it seems he interferes with all of our plans. First he wastes our time by sending us out to arrest his citizens. Then, he insists he deserves control over the Heartless…You know he took Superior's room."

"He made me spend days in my lab equipping him to make his own portals," Vexen added, "because Larxene got tired of going everywhere with him."

"He's certainly proven himself to not be the greatest castle-mate, but what of it?"

"If there ever was a time to take him down, it's now."

Xaldin thought about it for a very long time, but since his face clearly showed skepticism, Vexen felt it necessary to expound, "He keeps asking us to help him fight off Nori and his friends. It would be so easy to just join Nori to help take him down. Together it would surely work."

Zexion added, "And the one thing that's always held us back before is gone now. Tia Dalma no longer holds the power of light, so the people wouldn't make her queen…and Nori certainly doesn't want the responsibilities of ruling all of Fiction-land. We take down Lionel and help release Tia and we look like the heroes, and also the only people willing and able to take over his position as ruler."

Xemnas suddenly appeared in the cell as well, clapping his hands and commenting, "And the darkness continues. I was wondering how long it would take one of you to come up with that idea. Just like that and all the hearts will be ours."

"You need to stop doing that Superior," Vexen noted. "If you can hear everything we say, even in private, how can we be sure Lionel isn't listening as well."

"What makes it so fear inspiring is that I tell no one how to use it…Now, how do you propose we do it?"

"Drugs," Vexen suggested.

"Hand to hand combat?" Xaldin wondered.

"Turn one of his concubines against him and have her stab him in the heart while he's sleeping," Zexion added his own thoughts.

"That just gave me a nasty picture," Vexen replied.

"That man is no longer kill-able," Xemnas corrected. "His shell is made of the same material as Writers' Block, so he will never more be brought to a story. But he can still adjust himself, as his heart is made of a computer that continually adds, 'Lionel cannot die,' to his story."

"Then, we just need to find a way to keep him locked up somewhere for all eternity," Vexen understood, slightly disappointed. That would be impossible now that he could use portals.

"First of all," Xemnas explained, "we disable the portals…for everyone except the four of us; though, we'll have to be extremely careful in the way we use it. We wouldn't want Lionel to get the idea he's the only one being effected."

"How do they do that?" Demyx quietly asked in curiosity from the floor.

Xemnas gestured Roxas to stand up, even though he'd just barely opened his eyes. Roxas had no idea what the conversation had been about, but he nervously obeyed, walking over to the group of four. Xemnas put a strong hand on Roxas's shoulder and pointed him towards Xaldin and Vexen.

"You know what to do," he told the two of them. "It won't be too hard to blame the kid." Then, he left, gesturing that Zexion come with him, probably to do some strategic planning.

Zexion obeyed as Xaldin suggested to Vexen, "Go on ahead of me and get things set up," so Vexen took Roxas away to get things set up.

A second later, Xaldin turned to Wesley in the corner. "Why are you crying kid?"

"Kemina left me, my captain's trying to kill me, my sister doesn't know who I am, and a man with rotten teeth kissed me," Wesley responded distantly. "Just all the things I wish I'd never remembered is all…"

"It worked then?" Xaldin questioned.

Wesley nodded. After a moment to think about it, he inquired, "Does that mean I'm gonna die again, since it was over so soon."

"Unfortunately, probably."

For another moment, Wesley nodded before asking, "Can I make a request?"

"You can always request; though, I particularly enjoy telling people no."

Wesley decided to give it a try. "Can I be killed by the Heartless?"

"What?"

"I've done a lot of thinking on the matter—I've had a lot of time. And it makes sense to me. If I'm killed by the Heartless, then I might come back as a Nobody, and I'll understand the reasons why you are the way you are."

Xaldin smiled slightly, "Who told you that?"

"That girl…Katex."

"I'll see what I can do…no promises, though. I do promise that I will not hurt you until I have given you an answer."

Across the castle, in another one of those white rooms, Roxas was sitting in the chair Vexen had left him in. There were earphones on his head playing a constant ear breaking, nerve wrecking, high pitched, squealing noise. A moment later, Xaldin entered the room, acting as if he hadn't noticed Roxas suffering all alone in the middle, waiting for the promised return of Vexen. He just walked to the same computer that was generating the noise and pushed a few buttons—actually enabling a certain power of the forest which limited the use of portals to specific people. Then, he walked out, as if nothing had ever happened.

A second after Xaldin left the room, Roxas threw the earphones to the ground questioning, "Why am I listening to this?" However, he quickly realized that the entire room was filled with the noise. He ran to the door Xaldin and Vexen had left through—the same door he had entered through—but it was locked. Frustrated, he did the only thing he could think of. He formed his dark keyblade in his hands, charged the computer, and destroyed it.

The noise sputtered and died, and Roxas collapsed to the floor in relief. Xaldin once again entered the room, clapping his hands and commenting, "Bravo, bravo. That was exactly what you were supposed to do. You've set our changes in stone, and ensured that people have no one to blame but you." Then, he formed a portal and grabbed Roxas's arm to drag him through it, saying, "Now back to the prison for you."