A/N: Surprise! After a really long hiatus, we're back. You know that feeling when you have too much on your plate and you're trying to juggle all these things in your life which leaves little energy for other things? And then the longer you leave something, the less confident you are in doing said thing? I'm being very subtle here, aren't I? But anyway, because it's NaNoWrMo, I'll be channeling my energies into my writing and gaining back that confidence. Hopefully you can bear with me during that process. So this is partially this is a challenge to myself, but also the road to the fourth and final installment of Sora and Luna's journey is one that I want to undertake at my absolute best. So without further ado, let's get right back to it!


Chapter 5

Life's A Game

Riku's body froze, his hands gripping both utensils in his hands so much that they were digging into his palms. The boy who stood in front of him seemed to have a cheerful, almost innocent air about him. If it wasn't for the fact that he knew Riku's name, he wouldn't have given much thought to him otherwise. He wore rather formal attire, with a white long-sleeved shirt and waistcoat. This was heavily contrasted by pressed tartan pants and white sneakers.

"Do I know you?" Riku asked the brunette. If this was another Keyblade wielder, he wasn't about to start a fight in someone else's business, but he should be ready to act just in case.

"Well I certainly hope not or I'm not doing my job properly," the boy replied with a look of mock concern. He looked over to Susan, returning to a genuine smile. "How're things going today, Susie?"

"Oh, they're going, hun. It's so good to see you again!" Susan exclaimed. "I didn't realise you two knew each other."

"We don't." Or at least, I don't, Riku added in his head. The more he thought about it, the less he liked that. This person having the advantage on him terrified him.

"He's right. We're more acquaintances through someone else. Susie, do you mind putting something on the jukebox for us? I need to talk with this guy for a bit." The boy pulled out a silver coin from his pocket and handed it to Susan.

"Well then! You boys have fun! Oh, what it is to be youthful again. You reach my age and you're starting to get worried about where the hemorrhoid cream is in your bag," Susan said with jovial laughter. As she left the two of them alone, the boy sat down in her place and began drumming his fingers against the table.

"So, how's your food?"

"Well I was enjoying it, but the appearance of a sudden someone has spoiled the experience," Riku said.

"Good thing you didn't pay. I'm guessing you didn't pay. Susie's like that. Certainly was with me anyway. It's like she thinks she's picking up strays. I love her to bits though. Don't you break that poor woman's heart or I will be seriously disappointed in you-"

Riku slammed his fist onto the table just as a melodic bossa nova tune began to play throughout the restaurant.

"Who are you? Horus?" Riku asked.

"Horus? Ugh, please don't offend my sensibilities. I despise them probably just as much as you. No, maybe even more. Look, I don't expect us to cross paths again unless you intend on getting in my way so I'll make this quick. Go home, Riku. You and your friends don't know what you're getting yourselves into… well, maybe you do," the boy paused momentarily looking at Riku's eyepatch in thought. "Either way, you've already caused too much trouble. We even tried to stop Sora and that clearly didn't work-"

Riku leaned back in his seat and folded his arms. "You're Moira's Crescent."

The boy shrugged. "The one and only. Name's Lysander, just so we're on equal terms. Although I get the feeling by your piercing gaze that could melt ice that you don't really care."

Riku slammed down on the table again, his plate chattering forward as he did so. The boy seemed to jump for a bit then glared at Riku.

"I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't do that. You're scaring the cook," the boy said through gritted. Riku glanced over his shoulder to see that the cook behind the counter was at least pretending not to listen in on their conversation, although he was certainly doing a bad job of the pretending part.

"Listen. It's all water under the bridge. We don't hold grudges. And it was our fault anyway. We should have widened our net. The prophecy we were following gave us an incomplete picture, and I think that emotions were running high among us after Yeul's death that we didn't stop to think about that much. Her last prophecy seemed pretty straightforward and we went with it. Although I will say if we had killed Sora sooner we still could have prevented it BUT-" he quickly added upon seeing Riku's piercing glance. "But it's time we move on and let bygones be bygones. There are much bigger threats at the moment. Don't you agree?"

"I don't," Riku answered with a snarl. He could feel his fists clenching around his utensils ever tighter. "When you come after my friends, you don't get to ask for forgiveness, or ask to forget. I'll make this simple for you. I see you or any of yours again, or you come after my friends… you won't get off easy next time. Stay out of my way."

Riku looked down at his plate in slight disappointment, not at the food, but that he felt he couldn't enjoy it to its fullest in the presence of this person. He hated to leave it unfinished, especially after being given it for free. It truly felt like a disrespect to Susan.

With some hesitation, he rose from his seat when Lysander shot up like a bullet. "Oh, don't feel the need to leave. Sit. Enjoy your food and everything the town has to offer. It's a beautiful place. I can see I'm not wanted so I'll be taking my leave now." Then to Susan he waved her over, exchanged a few words and headed for the door.

"The Wraith are here," the words came out of Riku's mouth before he realised it. Susan provided him with a quizzical look and Lysander paused with his hand on the door's handle.

"Thanks for the tip," was Lysander's reply, and without looking back he exited the diner, leaving Riku to ponder what in the world had possessed him to even say anything. Perhaps there was a part of him that could still be genuinely concerned for the well-being of another, even if it was a Keyblade wielder. After all, it was not as though Lysander had personally done anything to Riku to warrant not being told this information. That and if there was someone else to keep the Wraith at bay, Riku could focus on gathering information on Janus.

Despite his confidence in the thoughts he had convinced himself into believing, Riku couldn't help but feel unsettled. That he could meet another Keyblade wielder just like that, even if it wasn't the one he was hunting… it was only a reminder he needed to keep his guard up.

Around fifteen minutes later, after placing the last piece of pancake in his mouth, he set his knife and fork down on the plate and leaned back in his seat, smiling contently. His encounter with Lysander hadn't left his mind but it was, at least for the moment, one of the furthest things from his thoughts. Of that, he could at least be glad.

"Well how was it, sweetpea?" Susan asked, almost arriving at his side immediately. It was almost as though she had been waiting for him to finish.

Riku nodded his head fervently and gave her a thumbs up. "Excellent. Thanks."

"Aw, don't mention it! Just doing my job," Susan replied, bashfully.

Pretty sure giving free food isn't in the job description, Riku thought. Regardless, he wasn't about to question a kind act of altruism. Instead, he got straight to the point.

"I was wondering if you've noticed anything strange in town lately." He paused, thinking back on how truly open to interpretation that statement was. "Um, I'm looking for a guy with hair white as ash. He might be wearing some tinted glasses as well. But anything suspicious at all will do."

"Hmm, well I can't say I've seen anything like that personally but you know who might have? Stanley Pines. You just go straight down this road and turn left when you see a bridge leading into the forest. There's a little clearing after a short path there and that's where you'll find his place."

"Thank you. I really appreciate it," Riku said, standing up from his seat. The meal had left him feeling a little drowsy but he pushed past it in hopes that a good walk would help clear the feeling up.

"Oh, no worries, hun. All I need is for you to come back soon so you can try my chicken pot pie. I'll even personally make it just for you," Susan said with a wink.

"Sure, that would be great," Riku said, although he hardly wanted to think about his next meal of where it came from at the moment. After saying one last goodbye, Riku left through the door, a smile on his face.


It was as Susan had said. Following the directions she had given took him to a trail with tall trees reaching out to the sky on either side of him. At the end of this path was a clearing with a house with long sloping roofs. On the side closest to him were two big wooden signs attached spelling the words "MYSTERY SHACK". Riku noted that at some point the 'S' had fallen onto the roof leaving its imprint on the wooden board.

"I think I've had enough mysteries for one day," Riku bemoaned. He stepped onto the porch leading to the entrance of the house and opened the door, again to the ringing of bells for the second time that day. The room he had stepped into was cluttered with various items and memorabilia on shelves and hanging on walls. T-shirts, towels, mugs and other not-so-strange gift items were placed around various locations in the room. Riku barely flashed them a second glance.

And then there were the NOT-not-so-strange items. On one of the shelves behind the counter was a jar with a hand floating in some kind of liquid. Was it a real hand? Riku couldn't say. Perhaps he didn't want to find out. Below the counter, stored in separate compartments was a bust of some exotic monster's head that he had never seen before, and a stone tablet with an eye in its centre.

"Selphie would love this place," Riku murmured to himself, thinking of his childhood friend who had a fascination with the supernatural. He looked to the four people in the room. Two of them, clearly the youngest of the four by a mile, were on the shop floor sweeping at the wooden floorboards. The one behind the counter was a taller teenage girl with long red hair and a trapper hat. She was sitting in a chair with her feet crossed on the desk and a fully absorbed in a magazine about motorcycles.

"Hey, Soos, look at this bad boy! The mileage on this thing is insane! Oh, man, it would be so cool being a mechanic and working on these babies," she yelled out, showing the fourth person in the room the page she was looking at. He seemed about the same age as the girl, chubby in size and wearing a cap. In his hands was a large opened box of which Riku could just about make out the shape of various items poking out from the top.

"Um, I don't know, Wendy. Seems a bit like getting dirty to me," the chubby teen named Soos replied.

"Dude, that's the best part. Back me up, Dipper."

The boy who was sweeping near the back entrance stopped for a moment and looked over at the girl by the desk, "A little mess can be fun every once in a while."

"Um, I think there's a difference between a little mess some of the time and a lot of mess all of the time, dude. I don't think a mechanic is the former of the two. Oh, hey, we have a customer! Welcome to the Mystery Shack Gift Shop. Home of the extraordinary, the surreal, and the nonsensical to the highly untrained eye."

Riku gave them a small smile and got straight to the point. "Sorry, I'm not really here to buy anything. I was told if I came here I might be able to get some answers about something. I was wondering if any of you have witnessed anything strange lately?"

"Um… I think you're going to want to elaborate on that. We see plenty of strange things all the time!" replied the young girl with brown hair, letting out a small snort of laughter at the end.

"Yeah, I can see that…" Riku said. He had to admit, it would be awfully hard to find something strange in a place filled with already strange things.

"Oh, but now that you mention it, I guess there is something…" Dipper said, looking over at the young girl. "It usually happens at night. The past few days we've been seeing strange lights and noises coming from the woods."

"By which my darling brother means I noticed them, and then told him about it after waking him up from his dream of his dearest beloved We-"

But Dipper was by the girl's side faster than Riku could even blink and covered her mouth, eliciting muffled protests from the girl. "Thaaat's quite enough, Mabel. Sorry, my sister sure does like to run her mouth a lot."

"Could you point me in the direction of where you saw the light?" Riku asked, tearing his eyes from the scenery behind the siblings.

Mabel eventually managed to wrestle back control of herself from Dipper. "Hey, are you an MSI as well?"

Riku raised a brow. "MSI?"

"You know, mystery scene investigator, like us! Oh, take us with you! Pretty please!"

Dipper drove his palm against his forehead and glared at the girl. "Why would he know that when we literally just made that up the other day?" He then looked over to Riku, his face softening. "It's by the old abandoned church. We went there to check it out the other day but we didn't find a single thing."

"Yep. Sounds abandoned alright," Wendy weighed in with the magazine still obscuring half of her face.

"There's just a church in the middle of the woods?" Riku asked.

"This town used to have all sort of weird things back in the day. I think it was a church with one of those cultish followings," Soos told him. "I know because my abuelo was a part of one of those cults before he left it when he met my abuelita. She told me 'Love is the cure to stupidity'."

"Well ain't that the sweetest dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Riku could hear the sounds of grumbling and footsteps coming from the door behind Dipper. A much older burly man entered the room, his nose as red as a cherry and with unkempt stubble on his face.

He scratched his chin as he scanned the room, his eyes briefly fixing on Riku. His lips were slightly parted and his eyes seemed slightly dazed. "Hey, who brought a pirate in here? Hey, say something pirate-y like 'Y'arr, matey!'"

"No," was Riku's one worded reply.

"BOOORRRI-HACK-ACK!" The man could barely finish his sentence before he was sent into a coughing fit. Mabel rushed to his side immediately, a stern look on her face.

"What did I tell you, Uncle Stan? You can't get better without some rest! We'll handle the Mystery Shack but you need to focus on making a fast recovery. Doctor's orders."

Stan sniffled. "But-"

"Ah-ah-ah! Doctor's orders," Mabel quickly interrupted, adopting a stern expression. When this 'Uncle Stan' stared back, it seemed apparent that he saw something in the young girl that made him fearful.

"But I-"

"DOCTOR'S ORDERS!"

"Yes, Doctor Mabel," Stan quickly relented after this explosion. He grimaced at Dipper who could only laugh nervously. As he turned around, Riku caught the brief ramblings of something like, "…can't lock me up forever."

Mabel seemed to have heard something along those lines too. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

"Nothing! Look at me, gonna get- ACHOO!— betta weal soon!"

Riku looked on with a lopsided expression as the old man gave a woeful sniffle before heading back through the door he had come from. Mabel waited a few seconds, popping around the door to make sure he truly had left before reappearing and looking at Dipper. "See? I knew we should have bought a lock for his door."

Dipper rolled his eyes. "We're not buying any locks! What's next? One of those electronic tags you attach to people's ankles to keep track of them?"

"Hmm, how much do those cost anyway?" Wendy asked.

"Not helping."

"What? It's not like I was planning on using it or anything," Wendy defended, lowering her magazine.

There was a brief pause before Soos broke the silence, "Well that doesn't sound suspicious at all."

Wanting to get the conversation back on topic before it wildly diverted from why he was here, Riku quickly intervened. "I should get going. A church in the woods, right?"

"If you're thinking of going there, why not wait until night instead? I told you we've already tried during the day and there was nothing there."

Riku's face hardened. On one hand, just because these kids hadn't noticed or seen anything didn't mean he wouldn't. Thought of Janus slipping away because he waited too long was almost unbearable to him. On the other hand, he didn't exactly have a reason to doubt these kids either. If they were noticing a pattern then it would be foolish to dismiss it.

Riku looked and spotted a digital clock by the counter that read "2:42pm". He would be waiting for a good while. He just hoped he was making the right decision.

He looked back to Dipper. "Well… I'll take your word for it. In the meantime, need any help cleaning?"

Dipper seemed momentarily stunned by the proposal. "Oh, no, y-you don't have to."

"I have nothing else to do at the moment. And besides, they used to call me 'The Cleaner' back when I was in school," Riku stated as though it were a matter of pride.

"Woah! You were that good?" Mabel asked.

"No, I just got in detention a lot and they made me clean the classroom," Riku replied, a small smile forming at the memory.

"You were kind of a naughty kid, huh?" Wendy asked.

Riku shrugged. "I don't know if I'd say that. Partly was being strongly opinionated, partly was taking the fall for a friend of mine."

"Now that's true friendship right there. Soos, you really need to up your game, man."

"But I usually am the one taking the fall," replied Soos, a finger pointed to himself.

As Riku helped the Mystery Shack crew clean the front of store, he became closer acquainted with more of its peculiar items. At first, some of the merchandise seemed normal enough: bobbleheads of the man who had come in earlier lined the counter and against the wall on the left when one were to enter the gift shop were racks and stands of magazines, postcards and t-shirts. Next to these were two shelves with hats with a question mark at the bottom and above them a skull-shaped candle in front of him and a statue with quartz crystals buried within earthy concrete to its left.

As he moved throughout the room, the items became even stranger, peaking his interest all the more. The head of a cross between a stag, bat and bear hung up on the wall next to a shelf with a jar of eyeballs and an even bigger jar with tiny glowing green creatures floating in liquid. On the island there were fairy tales of creatures like this called pupu who rode atop the star-shaped fruit from which the islands were born. He doubted there was any truth in this tale, especially now when he knew so much more, but he couldn't help but make the connection nonetheless.

As he made his way through the room with broom in hand, he encountered other sinister curiosities: stone tablets with strange runes, shrivelled up wrinkly heads hanging off walls, a monkey's paw on a stand, various stones and supposed accursed trinkets (according to the labels in front of them) in glass cases...

"Do people really go for these?" Riku asked at one point, flicking his index finger repeatedly against the jar of floating eyeballs.

"Eye have no idea! Hehe," was a one-eyed Mabel's reply. "What, do you want one?"

"Mabel, too soon," whispered Dipper through gritted teeth. Mabel immediately looked apologetic however Riku only seemed to smile and go back to cleaning the corner of the room.

Shadows stretched into the room as time drew on, a beautiful orange peaking through the window and illuminating the room in a bright glow. By this time, Riku had long since finished cleaning and had graciously accepted the sandwich offered to him by Dipper and Mabel. After being taken to their bedroom, he sat down at the desk near the window and devoured it hungrily.

Night soon crept up on them. The Mystery Shack had closed up business and Dipper and Mabel had come back up to the room to join him. Dipper walked over to Riku, in his bag was an open backpack from which he pulled out several items.

"We have some binoculars, a flashlight, some gummy worms, a POG dispenser, and a journal. I think we've got everything covered for a successful stakeout unless I'm missing something."

"Stakeout! Stakeout! Stakeout!" Mabel yelled jumping up and down on her bed in joy.

"You two really don't need to do this, you know. What if it's dangerous?" Riku asked.

"We know these woods like the back of our hands and from all the strange things we've seen, this is more like… a drop in the ocean! Plus, there's no way we're missing out on this for the world. Right, Mabel?"

"Right!"

A few more hours passed and Riku jolted awake. He hastened to look around him, only to calm upon realising his whereabouts. He was not there anymore. It had just been a dream. A bad dream like all the others before it.

He looked over to the two beds in the room to find both Dipper and Mabel fast asleep. In the latter's arms rested a pig, sleeping almost soundlessly unlike the girl next to it. Riku's attention was drawn away then and there when a flash of light caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. Looking outside the window, he waited for any other hint or trace. The window was open, bringing with it the slightly chilly yet crisp night air. It was only after a while that he realised that he was holding onto his breath. He didn't have to wait long for the bright light soon flashed again atop the trees in the distance before disappearing. Riku looked over quickly at Dipper and thought to wake him. And then he thought again and decided against it. If it was Janus then there was no way he could get these two kids involved.

Slowly, he stood up from the chair and putting one foot forward at a time, crept towards the door. His hands embraced the cool doorknob and he slowly twisted it, drawing it towards him. He made sure to make leave just wide enough of a gap for him to slip through. Once on the landing, he tiptoed towards the stairs, keeping in mind any creaky wooden floorboards as he walked. Down the stairs he went with the greatest care, skipping the second step on purpose. He had noticed earlier on his way up before that it creaked as loud as metal. Once in the hallway, he made his way to the gift shop and grabbed the bell at the door's entrance as he opened it to slip out.

Once outside, he immediately started for the direction of the light. The sibling's bedroom was around the back of the shack so from the back of the building, it seemed like a straight shot to this supposedly abandoned church. The fear of missing out on this strange occurrence propelled him to move quicker on his feet, and soon a fast walk became a light jog as he travelled into the dark forest.


Beams of moonlight crept in through the thick branches, however Riku mainly relied on the glowing tip of his Keyblade to guide his way. After navigating around several thorny brambles and thickets, he stopped upon seeing more light up ahead. His heart began pounding through his chest so hard he thought it was going to explode. His pace quickened as he stepped over ground both soft and snappy. Finding a bunch of bushes, he crouched low and peered through the leaves.

"Must be the church," Riku said, looking at the derelict building. Moss covered the peeling walls and its windows were boarded up. What's more, a strange atmosphere befell the place, one that Riku could not quite place but he would not be remiss in thinking it some kind of haunted house.

He did a quick look over at the area but there was no one about anywhere near the church. Riku slowly began to lose hope. Surely if he was here, security would not be so lax? Or perhaps Riku was simply expecting too much. In any case, he needed to investigate further.

But before he could approach the building, he heard a sharp snap behind him. He quickly whipped around, his eyes scanning the trees. Eventually, the figure emerged from behind one of the trees.

"Well, I knew we'd cross paths again. I just didn't think it would be so soon," Lysander spoke softly.

"What are you doing here?" Riku asked, pointing his Keyblade at the young man.

Lysander looked down at the Keyblade and smiled as he raised his hands. "Ooh, someone's bloodthirsty. Tell me, do you point that thing at just about anything that comes your way?"

"Anything and everything that deserves it, yes," Riku said.

Lysander shook his head as he took a few steps closer. "See... as much as I would love to stop and chat, as it happens I don't really have the time."

"Neither do I. So let's make it quick," Riku said. "You Moira's Crescent lot are like a bunch of annoying flies."

"Well flies are attracted to trash, are they not?" Lysander replied. Riku raised his Keyblade, poised to strike but Lysander summoned his own. Its design was blocky like a bunch of pixels, it's brilliant red glistening in the moonlight like blood. There were also purple pic-shaped pockets jutting out on either side of the blade with gears coming out of their sleeves.

"It seems we're at an impasse. Tell me, Riku, do you like games?" Lysander asked.

Riku was taken aback for a moment. Even more so when Lysander began spinning his Keyblade around by its length.

"What are you-"

"Shh, no words, dear. All you need do is watch," Lysander said. "Think of it as a… naughty magician's trick, see? Now you see me. Now you-"

Riku blinked, and looked around. Gone was the crisp air, gone was the mishmash of brown and gray, gone was Lysander. Instead, he appeared to be in a gray room. Lines along the floor and walls formed square patterns all over the room. Aside from these features, there were no windows, no doors, nothing aside from himself.

Riku lowered his Keyblade and stood straight, looking around. "What the hell…?"

"Welcome to the Game Engine. My Keyblade's 'limit break', if you will." Riku could hear Lysander's voice from up somewhere high above.

"Lysander!"

"Oh, now you want to talk to me. The only thing is I'm not sure that hot head of yours has cooled down yet, so don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to do so here. I don't believe in unfairness though. A game isn't very good if it doesn't explain the rules properly, so allow me to give you a fighting chance.

"As the name suggests, the Game Engine can create entire worlds. Stories. The world I'm generating for you is a simple playground game of tag. Should be easy, no?"

The white room seemed to melt away in front of Riku's eyes, or perhaps fold away was a better description for everything seemed to fold neatly in on itself, leaving only a blinding white light until that too was replaced by new scenery. Riku peered out across the vast landscape—the tops of trees stretching out as far as the eye could see. He seemed to be standing above the emergent layer of the trees nearest to him as well. As for what he was standing on… he looked around him, taking in the large ziggurat-shaped building in front of him.

"Of course, if it were that simple, it would be boring, and games are no fun when they're boring. So here's the rub—inside that temple you will find an artefact, don't worry about the what, you'll know it when you see it. Bring that to the top of the building, and you win! Also, a replica of yourself happens to exist somewhere within that temple. And this is where the tag part comes in. If they touch you, it won't be game over, but… well actually, I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise. All I will say is that the replica has the same goal as you. If they deliver the artefact to the top before you, well, the level will reset so if you don't want to be stuck playing this game forever and ever and ever and ev- well you get the point. So if you don't like repetitive game loops, I'd advise being quick about it. Now I know you don't want to hear it from me but trust me when I say I mean it from my heart of hearts—good luck."

"Lysander! Lysander!" But for all his attempts of yelling out to the heavens, no response came. He was alone once more.

Riku let out a controlled sigh and looked at the building in front of him. Its walls seemed paved of limestone with long, thin vines stretching out across the ground and up the walls to the very top. From the outside, it seemed not too bad a challenge at all. In fact, if he just…

Riku backed up a bit until he was at the edge with the tops of the trees being the only thing behind him. Then he took off into a full sprint, heading towards the wall. As he kicked off against the adobe bricks in his attempt to run up it, his mind suddenly felt a very strange disconnect from his body. The next thing he knew, he felt this strange force drag him back to the ground.

His back hit the floor and he groaned, opening his eyes, he looked up at the sky, his head stirring left and right.

"Restrictions," a robotic female voice suddenly echoed through the air. "Increased gravity is in effect."

"Oh, thanks." Riku let his head drop in defeat. After a short while, he sat up and nodded his head. "We'll do it your way then."

He stood up and stood face to face with the temple's walls once again. He placed his hand against the wall. It was incredible to him how something fake could feel so real. Was this how DiZ had constructed the virtual Twilight Town? The perfect fabrication, one whose existence was just good enough to convince someone it was real. But like the simulated Twilight Town, it too had to have seams – strings that could unravel its true nature. The only question was whether he could unravel these strings or whether they would unravel him.