"Gah!" Roxas dug his fingers into the armrest of the chair, and held on for dear life while Sora tried to remember how to steer the Gummi ship. "You have done this before, right?" The ship rocked, and Sora tumbled out of his seat and banged his forehead on the yoke.

"It's just being sticky!" Sora scrambled back into his seat, and the plummeting Gummi stabilized, for the moment. "I know what I'm doing!" Sora, one hand fighting the yoke, flailed at Roxas with the other. "In front of you, the panel's got images of the worlds, find the Twilight Town one." He leaned back in his seat, and pulled the yoke towards him. The Gummi's nose pointed up, and with a little bit of acceleration, shot into the clouds above Destiny Island.

Roxas, utterly unused to moving on a moving object, stumbled forward, at a severe angle, to reach the panel. "You think you could, maybe, not go so steep?"

Sora obliged, and the Gummi ship settled to a slower, shallower incline. "Better?"

"Much." Roxas scanned the options, and settled on one that looked like what he remembered to be Twilight Town. He leaned in closer, and in tiny writing across the bottom, he could just barely make out two words starting with 't'. "I think I've got it. Do I just push it?"

"Yeah, just lemme get going a bit faster first, it takes longer if you're going slow. Er, hold on." Roxas obeyed without thought, latching onto the slight rail, and shifting one foot behind him to attempt to balance his weight. Sora pressed on the accelerator, and the Gummi ship launched forward, and burst out of the clouds. Roxas felt himself being pulled backwards, and he gritted his teeth. "Now!"

Roxas jabbed at the button, and the ship went from speeding over the ocean to a dead standstill in a matter of milliseconds. Roxas fell flat on the panel, feeling like he'd just been stretched like a rubber band and promptly shot off to hit a wall. "Does it always feel like that?" he asked, mentally swearing never to let Sora drive again. "Are we in one piece?"

Sora didn't answer. He merely grinned, and got up to stand between the two chairs at the front of the ship. "C'mon," he said. "Time to visit some friends."

Roxas warily joined him, and, thankfully without the stretched feeling, disappeared and soon found himself standing in Station Heights.

Sora grinned at him, and started to wander towards the path down to the Usual Spot. "Will Hayner and them be there?"

Roxas shrugged, and looked up at the sun. "It's not like it gets dark or anything, but we can check and see. One of the Disciplinary Committee is probably around somewhere, seems like Seifer never slept."

Sora shrugged and linked his hands behind his head. "Probably." He stopped, partway to the street, and headed for the low wall surrounding the Station. "You know, you can fly in Neverland," he said conversationally. Roxas followed, and they sat on the wall. "With Peter, and Tinkerbell, and all them."

He looked out over Twilight Town, eyes not really seeing. Roxas stared down at the beach, almost directly below them, and saw-

"Hayner!"

Roxas leaned over the wall, and the hotheaded blond stared back. A grin spread across Roxas' face, but it was promptly destroyed when Sora, leaning over as well, leaned too far and, with a startled yelp, tumbled off of the wall.

"Sora!" Roxas grabbed at his flailing limbs, but Sora fell beyond his grasp. "NO!"

Before either him or Hayner, whose yell Roxas had drowned out, could react, Sora had whipped out his Keyblade, and with a flash, he lodged it in the stone wall, and hung there, twenty feet above Hayner's head. He dangled there, and Roxas could just barely make out Sora's rather disgruntled expression. "Are you okay?" he called down. Sora was too far down for Roxas to pull back up, but maybe if he could find a rope somewhere…

"How far down is it?" Sora asked. He adjusted his grip on the handle, and scrabbled at the wall with his feet. "I can jump it."

"Really far," Hayner said, pacing underneath Sora. "You'll get hurt."

"I've heard that a lot."

"Sora-!"

"SORA!"

The boy braced himself, and flipped off of the wall.

He landed with a thump and a spray of sand, but he landed on his feet, and Roxas's heart was pounding.

My…heart?

Roxas pulled back from the edge and pressed a hand to his heart. It was a weird feeling- fear, and a little bit of anger, but Sora's emotions still spilled into him even apart and there was exhilaration like he hadn't felt since their return. It almost hurt…was that normal? Was it supposed to hurt?

"Roxas? You still there?"

He shook his head, and forced the thoughts out. He didn't need to worry about his heart; he needed to focus more on making sure Sora didn't accidentally kill himself.

"Yeah- yeah, I'm here." He leaned over, and Sora waved, smiling cheerfully. Hayner looked annoyed, his arms crossed, but that was a given for him; he wasn't one to be openly happy unless he was ordering people around or beating things up. "I'm going to take the safer way down if you don't mind. Some of us would prefer to not die."

Sora just grinned and Roxas rolled his eyes and headed for the train.

"Is that one of your friends?" Hayner asked. The blond boy reminded him of Sora in a way, but he was sure they'd never met.

"Yeah. Sort of." Sora linked his fingers behind his head and turned away from the wall. The keyblade disappeared, and Hayner waited for Sora to do or say something about it, but the boy just wandered towards the water. "Hey, where're Pence and Olette?"

"They're doing homework." Hayner crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "Why're you here? Something happening?"

"Nah, I needed to get away from my mom and everybody for a bit. What's new around here?" Sora sat down and sprawled across the sand. A few feet away, the water rolled up the beach, and pulled back with the same soothing rhythm of the Islands. "Sorry to barge in like this."

"No problem."

-

Riku's Gummi soared over Twilight Town, his eyes scanning the ground for either boy. The Gummi was one of the smaller ones, with the cockpit right at the front and a nice, large window for which to glare down at the city below, and it was thankfully easy to fly by him alone.

Riku hovered it over the main square, and scanned the people wandering below. Sora should've stuck out like a sore thumb, he always did, but Riku couldn't spot him, and there was a large amount of city to cover; what if he was underground or inside somewhere? He hadn't been there for long, maybe five minutes, so he couldn't have gone too far…

Then again, Sora did have his ingenious moments. Sometimes. When he was about to die.

"Sora…"

-

Roxas headed up the stairs into the station, and crossed the open, empty floor to the train platform. It ran on a schedule, one coming in and taking passengers to the beach every fifteen minutes. The counter on the wall read 7:35, and it was counting down. Roxas sighed, and sat down on the platform. Seven minutes, and maybe Hayner could keep Sora from getting into a fight or trying to swim out as far as he could or falling off more walls.

Hah. Right. He'd probably be half-dead by the time Roxas got there. He'd gained a lot of appreciation for Donald and Goofy since being left on his own with the boy, and he almost wished Sora was still adventuring. He was a lot easier to keep in one piece when there was more than one person keeping track of him. Namely, more than one person outside of his own body keeping track of him.

At least there weren't any parents around. Sora could be whatever he wanted and there wasn't anybody to stop him.

"Hey, who said you could come in here? Get out! We don't want freaks in here!"

...except Seifer.

Roxas got to his feet, and warily turned to face the blond. He wasn't flanked by Rai or Fuu, but he did see Vivi halfway hidden behind Seifer. "I'm just waiting for the train," Roxas said. He took a step back, and wondered if the keyblades would be needed. Was Seifer really mean enough to attack somebody he didn't even know? The Seifer from his Twilight Town probably would. How similar were they?

"Yeah? Just waiting for the train?" Seifer smirked and crossed his arms. "Chicken. You don't even know who you're talking to, twerp."

Roxas turned to look at the counter- it was down to 6:13. "Twilight Town Disciplinary Committee, by any chance?" he muttered to himself. Seifer clearly had been accurately represented.

"What'd you say?"

Seifer produced a Struggle bat, and Roxas narrowed his eyes and produced his keyblades. He swung them in front of him, and shifted into a defense stance. "I really don't want to fight right now."

Seifer took an involuntary step back, and he eyed the keyblades. "That other freak had those too." Vivi squeaked, and darted behind Seifer. "I'll be back. And you're going to fight me whether you like it or not." He backed up, stepped on Vivi, cursed, and gave up, spun around, and stalked out. Vivi stared at Roxas, frozen in place.

"Hi, Vivi," Roxas said, deflating. He let go of the keyblades and they disappeared. Vivi's eyes got huge, and Roxas sighed. The boy was in with the wrong crowd, and sooner or later, it was going to bite him in the ass. "Are you going to go with Seifer or stand there and stare at me?"

"That was so cool!" Vivi exclaimed, suddenly. He turned and ran out, calling for Seifer, and Roxas shook his head. He sat down on the platform again, and leaned his head back. If only he could stay here, instead of going back to the Islands with Sora. He could rebuild his relationships, become what he'd been. It would be nice. He and Naminé could live there, and try to live normal lives.

Only he was stuck with Sora, and she was stuck with Kairi. It was nice, to have a heart, and to really feel again, but there were so many things he missed.

The train arrived, and Roxas jumped up. It was empty, so he simply stood in front of the doors, and held onto the railing instead of taking a seat.

-

Riku pushed open the doors to the train station, and looked around. The train was pulling out, and Riku narrowed his eyes. Roxas was on it, and the boy looked startled, but the train pulled away before anything could be communicated. Namely, the location of Sora, since it didn't look like he was there.

"Dammit, Sora!" Riku left the building, and stalked across the empty street.

"What's with all the freaks? Who the hell are you?" A snide, rude, I-need-to-be-punched voice startled him and Riku spun to face a boy who was already in a stereotypical battle stance, a blue and yellow bat in hand. "Get out of my town."

"Great, one more annoyance to deal with. Just what I need." Soul-Eater appeared in Riku's hand, and before the blond could react, Riku launched himself at him, and brought the sword down, hard enough to hurt but not enough to damage the boy. The blond barely brought the bat up in time to block the attack, and Riku fell back, angry. What kind of town was this, that people would attack others without reason? Why would Sora want to come to such a backwards place? "You're a waste of my time."

The boy narrowed his eyes, and jumped at Riku with a yell.

Riku parried the attack and knocked the boy to the side. He fell, hard, to his knees, and for the first time Riku noticed another boy, a more timid boy, plastered to the wall behind Seifer. He took a step towards him, but the blond picked himself up and dodged between Riku and the second boy. "Don't go near him," the blond snarled. "Your fight is with me."

At least he's a protective asshole. To an extent. Riku swung again, and the boy blocked and returned it, quicker than Riku expected. The bat bashed his chin and Riku tumbled backwards. He tasted the metallic tang of blood, and spit it onto the cobbled ground. "Do you have nothing better to do than fight people?"

-

"…better to do than fight people?"

The words drifted over the wall, and Sora twitched. Hayner stared up at the wall, head slightly cocked.

"You're going down!"

The resounding clash startled them both and Sora jumped to his feet. "That was Seifer," Hayner said grimly. He set off down the beach at a run, and Sora followed after, having little problem running in the sand. Long summer days spent racing Riku and Tidus and Wakka left him that much, and Hayner seemed just as well off.

"The other guy's Riku," Sora yelled. Hayner skidded to a stop around the corner, and looked up at the wall. "What?"

"Can you climb this?" Hayner asked. He rested his hand on the top of a brick, where the one above it had been pulled out.

Sora glanced at the wall, then back at Hayner. "If you can, I can."

-

"Seriously, what's your problem?" Riku shoved Seifer back, anger growing. The boy stumbled and tripped, and landed on his back. Riku took advantage of it and jumped on him, and grabbed his collar, both their weapons forgotten. "What the hell do you want?! I don't even know you!"

Seifer shoved at Riku, but he didn't budge. He had a few inches and several pounds of muscle on the blond, and he had no intentions of backing down to a small-town punk who clearly had no idea that it was a bad idea to pick a fight with somebody bigger than him. "Get off, or you'll regret it!"

Riku jerked at his collar again, and pulled him up nose-to-nose. "What. Do. You. Want," he snarled, his green eyes dark.

A painfully cheerful voice piped up behind him. "Riiiku, that's probably not a good idea."

"How many of you are here?" another blond boy, just as annoyed at the one pinned to the ground under Riku, asked. He turned to Sora, but he just shrugged.

They both approached, slowly, and Riku dropped the blond's head and got up. He stalked over to where he'd dropped Soul-Eater and knocked the blond over as he was getting back up. He pressed the tip to the unclothed expanse of skin between the midriff shirt and the low-slung pants. "Leave. Me. Alone. Understood?"

The boy let out a seething breath, but nodded, once. Riku lifted the sword, and the boy scrambled to his feet. "This isn't over," he said, defiant to the end. "Next time we meet, I'll win." He backed up until he was a safe distance away, then turned and stalked down the street.

"So you've met Seifer," Sora commented airily. "He likes to fight."

Riku turned on Sora, still fuming. "What are you doing? Your mom was freaking! You shouldn't be here and now assholes are picking fights and Roxas is on that train, and I want to know what's going on."

Sora lost his grin, and pouted. "I can't take it anymore. I can't do structure and school and all of it and I needed a break. Is that explanation enough?" He put his hands on his hips, and cocked his head. "Since you're here, want to see Twilight Town?"

He still hasn't changed. He's still the happy-go-lucky idiot he's always been.

"I'll take your lack of response as a yes. This is Hayner. Seifer hates him."

"Seifer hates everybody," Hayner said. "He's always been like that."

"This place is strange," Riku muttered. "And I was sent to bring you home, not to go galavanting around, getting into fights and destroying things. Let's go track down Roxas and leave. Your mom's gonna kill me if I don't bring you back."

Sora sighed. "Guess we're going to have to do this the hard way."

"What?"

Sora grinned, and broke into a sprint that carried him down the street the same way Seifer had gone.

"SORA!"