Slowly, my eyes pulled themselves open. Very slowly.

For a few minutes, I tried to pretend they weren't, but they weren't having any of it, and, reluctantly I wiped sleepy bits from the old eyelids, and struggled to stand up. This, I soon realized, was because I still had my trousers at my knees, and I was almost still completely dressed. I wobbled around on the bed, trying to pull off the trousers, boots, belt and shirt all at the same time, but I tumbled from the bed into the shallow ornamental pond beneath.

It took quite a while to sort myself out, actually. For a start, I had to climb from the pool sans breath and with my legs effectively tied together. After a few minutes of struggling with the rounded bottom of the pool, I finally climbed to the surface, drenched. Pulling off my drenched clothes, I thought about yesterday. For the first time, I truly questioned who the enigmatic Mr Slater was.

He'd not told me anything, at all, and scrubbing myself with a salmon-coloured towel (I couldn't absorb that much water), I 'pooled' together what I new about his life. It didn't take long. I didn't know anything for real, and yet the more I thought, the less important 'who' became, and the 'when' took a greater priority.

I pulled on another pair of briefs from my drawers, tossing my wet clothes onto the heater at the side of my room. The dress shirt and trousers followed, and I made a special effort to find two black socks, rather than shoving on any old pair (yesterday was a blue and black stripy and an old red and black rugby sock I have for reasons beyond my comprehension).

I soon came to realize that somewhere between having only one pair of black leather water-absorbent boots and a bed suspended in a pool, I'd made fatal error. I left them by the radiator, and did what I could to draw the water out of them, but all to no avail.

I was forced to ask Axel, my only other friend in the Organization, since the incident yesterday, whether he could heat up my boots, or otherwise lend me his, but dropped the subject quick smart when he asked me why I wanted them, and insisted he knew beforehand. Stupid redhead.

In the end, I resigned, and slipped my nicely matching socked feet into damp boots, and felt the cold instantly bite into them. I'd no other option, and so grabbed my coat, zipped up, and used a portal to return to Castle Oblivion, where Luxord, Vexen, Zexion and Lexaeus were waiting to fill me in on my missions of the day.

This time, Luxord insisted on coming with me to Traverse Town. I wished I'd gone on my own again, to check the meeting place, but without telling them my motive, I'd find it difficult to convince them. And the last thing I'd want would be for The Superior to know, and my current companions weren't exactly up to the task of keeping my secret.

The atmosphere was so frigid: Luxord and I, patrolling the streets of the Town in search of this legendary Guard Armour. We didn't chat. Short sentences were the only communication. This was dangerous for me. Every so often, I had to quickly conjure a lie when a question like this cropped up:

"Where did you search yesterday?"

"Uhh… you know, all over. I didn't go into the nooks and crannies, 'cause… uhh… I'm not sure where they are."

We searched for over an hour. No Guard Armour. However, Luxord's suggestion that we search the houses and shops just in case was a brilliantly ironic monument to my heart. Fear and excitement fused together. I don't know what I was experiencing, but it was better and worse than getting trapped by trousers at the bottom of shallow pools at the same time.

Immediately, doing my best to suppress enthusiasm, I said

"Fine, split up. You check the hotel, and I'll check the high street."

A non-committal noise behind me sounded fairly affirmative, and so, keeping the apprehensive spring in my step that was nothing to do with keeping damp feet warm to a minimum, I half stomped, half skipped over to the boutique.

I searched every nook and cranny. 'Not knowing where they were' couldn't be an excuse this time, and, in the bedroom, I found exactly what I was looking for: a pristine lined paper note in perfect loopy handwriting, left upon the dressing table.

"Same time as last night, nine." Squealing with quiet delight, I felt the grin deflated by Luxord growing again, and took the note, shoving it inside my pocket. I then grabbed the biro and bit of scrap paper, and did my best to imitate his beautiful penmanship with his letter to try to leave a good impression. Somehow, I didn't think Mr Slater would appreciate the artfulness in my trademark blotchy scrawl.

"Sure thing, Mister."

For the rest of the search of the houses and shops (which I faked, throwing cushions a bit and getting wet boot-prints over things to give Luxord the hint if he came sniffing around after me.) I couldn't help but watch seconds tick away till eight o'clock. By now, I only had five hours.

Luxord was still searching valiantly, ripping apart houses with a pair of huge evidently razor-sharp playing cards. I snuck up on him with a portal.

"Maybe I was right? That I couldn't actually find it?" No comment. So I carried on watching. After a while (half an hour), he eventually gave up, much to my amusement. However, he'd already got his guise ready: an eleventh member was found, courtesy of Zexion.

We returned to the World that Never Was again, and much to my increased elation, my boots had dried, even if my toes were still freezing. Since I'd been up, I'd been wondering about Mr Slater, and what he thought. Things like wet boots and my handwriting clearly weren't his style.

The initiation was held in the usual seated hall, and the circular set of chairs had been all stretched apart slightly to make room for member eleven. We were all hooded but he, though at first glance, you'd imagine 'she'. He had vividly pink layered shoulder-length hair, and a coy smirk fit upon his face. If he was worried, he didn't show it: he looked more proud to be invited into the coolest of gangs.

I was glad for the hood. With my face covered, I was able to space out and ignore the blather spewed by the upper members, leaving time to think on more important matters.

At the end of it, I quickly picked up from Axel that the new guy was called 'Marluxia' and wielded the element of 'flowers'. After the obligatory joke over the 'weedy' choice of fighting style, I had the rest of the day free. There was much deliberation over what to do in my final half hour before the appointed meeting. I considered telling Axel, but he was a bit of an odd duck. He was very fickle, and if I gave him a reason to spite me, he'd take it.

In the end, I spruced myself in my room, and used a portal to go to the boutique fifteen minutes early. I sat down on the bed, after checking my note had gone, and watched the seconds tick away again.